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by moojah 3342 days ago
Having grown up in Germany and living in the US, I feel the opposite. The US traffic is far less predictable. In the US, you have to look, left, right, back and ahead when trying to switch lane, as anyone could appear from anywhere. You never know which lane you should stay on to drive "a little faster". Generally, people just don't pay attention.

In Germany it is in one direction only. Left to overtake, right to pull back over. In addition you do have to monitor your back mirror more carefully, which people in the US do not seem to do (though they should). In Germany, virtually no one plays with their phones on highways.

Also, traffic deaths are more than half in Germany than in the US, despite higher speeds [0].

I feel like traffic rage in the US is much more prevailent, particularly in the east coast. Having said that, Dutch or Danish traffic is far more relaxing. But also much much slower...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

1 comments

US resident here. On the local freeway, when I signal I wish to make a lane change, other drivers often speed up. I really don't get it. What did I do to their family?
The trick is to follow the mirror, signal, maneuver method. In other words, you don't signal until you know you have a gap to change lanes into. If you signal first without checking for a gap first, then you're treating the signal as a way to ask for permission to change lanes. Other drivers may or may not allow you to do so.