Janie, have you been checked for cataracts? The night-blindness you describe, especially your reaction to on-coming headlights, sounds very much like what I experienced while waiting for my turn with the eye surgeon.

I often think that the way I learned to drive -- as a young soldier, in slow old trucks, always moving as part of a convoy -- helped inoculate me against impatience on the road. I watch other drivers weave in and out of the traffic streams on the autoroute with a mixture of wonder and dread: wondering what in hell they think they are achieving, and dread that they will do something both rash and sudden while briefly occupying space in my immediate vicinity.

I like to settle down at a safe distance behind another vehicle doing what I consider to be a sensible speed and stay there for miles and miles and miles, memorizing its licence plate and bumper stickers. Then some over-excited jerk will pass the guy drafting on us and pull into the safe-following space I left between our front bumper and the guy I'm drafting on ... Sigh.