I make it a point to follow further than i "need" to, for precisely this reason. I can coast to handle most of the normal "braking without stopping" scenarios, which is much more efficient for both traffic patterns and my own fuel consumption.

It also gives me room to maneuver in, a little runway to pick up the extra 20mph needed to really blow some jackass's doors off. But that's just a happy consequence of an efficiency-based strategy. I swear.

I do the lots of stopping distance approach on motorways too. This is partly compensation for my (suspected) slower reaction times due to driving infrequently, and partly a response to having read some New Scientist article years ago about the compression wave caused by people driving too closely together and then having to brake suddenly.

Also, I'm usually driving hire cars and I don't want to pay any excess on the shiny cars. I could pay extra to reduce the excess, but I find the prospect of incurring large costs if I'm stupid is a handy motivator (and saves me money every trip so far).

I try to do that too, but it doesn't tend to work well for me because some bugger from another lane always moves into the space I'm leaving...

You can look on that as a good thing, as it allows them to make a lane change without slowing everybody else down even more...