She couldn’t believe Americans actually follow traffic signals and rules of the road.

I was driving, he was "back seat driving". He kept saying I should run the lights and close the gap between us and the car in front of us. I kept telling him he was absolutely correct, then drove the way I wanted to.

Try to drive from Logan Airport to downtown in 5 PM traffic.

I let them do the cursing while I focus on why I am in Boston to begin with.

We parked outside of town and took subway.

Interesting place, with seemingly a lot of weirdly configured streets, to me that would be more troubling than idiot drivers.

Transitions to the Tobin or Gov Center or 93...Sumner...Sometimes you just have to be a jackass or it can cost you hours to get back to your right route. Stuck in Cambridge at 5.... You are sca-rewed. Northbound 1 to 95 north, uhhhggg.
Maybe get lucky and have to grab gas in Revere......

So.many.times.

I moved back to CO last summer and laugh at people who think the traffic here is bad.

5 cars in front of them at a light and they can't stand the "rush hour" traffic.

California, imo, has the best drivers overall, New York the most aggressive.

assuming they were moving. Somebody in the left lane going a bit too slow? Driver behind flashes lights; driver in front moves over; guy goes by; driver moves back....flow.

Didn't see the aggressive lane changes / zigzagging back and forth I've seen elsewhere.

At least they know to keep right and then pass on the left, whereas here anybody drives in any old lane with the occasional mad slalomer trying to find his way through the chaos.

ETA: Also, lots of drivers here in rainy Seattle do not know to turn their headlights on when it's raining either. I suspect they think their headlights are to help them see better rather than help them being seen.

I was there in October for the first time and I found it to be a good experience for the same reasons you mentioned. We lived in the right lane but every once in a while it was fun to open it up a little.

My state recently made left lane driving illegal on highways. You can only use it for passing. Drivers observed cruising in the left lane for long periods are cited.

in Ottawa. US residents could get their licenses transferred with no written or road tests. Europe and the rest of the world not so much.

I drove there last fall. By far the most disciplined and rule abiding drivers I have ever seen. When they drive, they drive.

Imagine the carnage on our interstates if areas had no speed limits. Yet it works there due to their superior driving skills.

Even Northern France seemed better than here.

Italy? Not so much. And in China you gamble with your life!!

Your description is not the Germany my wife and I contend with. German drivers, as a rule, are supremely aggressive, inconsiderate, and prefer risking a fatal accident than passing up a chance to overtake the car in front of them. The one thing my wife really looks forward to about vacations in the USA is the less aggressive driving. California is the best, Massachusetts is the worst, and it‘s still ten times more relaxing than trying to get from Düsseldorf to Köln. She has been the miraculous survivor of more than one instance where only pure luck saved her from a wreck caused by an aggressive German. Germans do not slow down for minor hindrances like thick fog, icy highways or pedestrians. Those winter crashes involving sixty cars and five dead are not the exception, but the rule.

We drove from Munich to Freiburg then on to Heidleberg where we spent a week driving around seeing the sites.

My perspective was of excellent drivers although I will agree somewhat aggressive.

But i did not see drivers spend more time texting than driving which is so common here that we expect people to be distracted and they often are. Nor people trying to drive why eating a Big Mac and fries, which is also common. Not necessarily a Big Mac, but get my meaning.

While I will redibly admit my perspective is one gained why having a great vacation, and not to be trusted, the German drivers were at least paying attention. Where I live, in central Florida, I would guess over a third of the drivers are doing something that takes a priority to driving. Here, you cannot be stopped for talking on your cell nor texting. They are secondary offenses.

Doing that at 120 miles an hour amounts to attempted murder if there is anyone else on the road, and the Germans finally woke up. That can lose you your license.

They are mostly accustomed to the high speeds but still drive recklessly. German TV did a documentary filmed at a spot on the Autobahn where reckless drivers drove into a concrete bridge foundation with some regularity. The ones that crawled out of their wrecks alive were asked if they would drive more carefully in the future. Most of them (all men driving alone btw) were baffled by the question, asking what in the world for? I‘m not kidding. That is the mentality here. Welcome to the real Germany. It‘s not always what it seems (for that matter, what is?).

I must say, I am happy to see less DU post holding European social programs as paradise. While there are many things in Western European nations I would like to see here, I have traveled enough to know it is no Nirvana. Hopefully more DUers are starting to read about about the reality in all nations.

Have a nice evening. Late over there.

I was just in D.C. and am trying to get home. Delta put us on a defective plane, left us there for over an hour, took us off, saying they had „found“ another plane. I am now in the Atlanta airport, so if Delta can‘t find a plane here, they can‘t find one anywhere. If I’m lucky, I’ll get home 4 hours late, and I have to be in Sprout City by 10 the next morning.

It is slowly dawning on me why some people retire.

And Delta is my preferred Airline.

Hope you get home safe.

Sprout City??

You see how much good THAT does me!

Sprout City: company slang: Brussels

Three and a half hours late, but this is why I always try to take nonstops if I can--no connections to miss.

anywhere.

And I think the death rate here is probably higher.

Insurance rates certainly are.

The US is at the low end of the scale, at 12 deaths per 100,000 cars per year. The American continent avg is 33.
Europe's avg is 19.

Norway is at the very low end of the scale at 3 per.

India is 130. China is 104.

And at the high end of the scale we have Africa overall at 574, with Guinea the worst at 9,462.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

US: 12.9 per 100,000
Germany: 6.8 despite large sections of the freeways having no defined speed limit. Better drivers, fewer jalopies on the road being probably the biggest factors.

The high European average is caused by countries in Eastern Europe & Turkey with death rates well over 30.

If my wife had been in a Chevy or a Ford (or a VW for that matter), I’d have been a widower twice over by now. Also, it’s geographically compact so help arrives quickly, and they are experts by now at trauma medicine. They save or at least keep alive for 30 days, a lot of crash victims. After 30 days, you no longer officially die from crash injuries, wven if you really did. They use these stats to show how much “safer” it is to drive in Germany. Take it from one who is out on their roads all the time: if you’re not driving a tank, it can get very intimidating.

Never seen anything like it.

Europe has trains, subways, buses, etc.

Worst drivers in America...bar none.