Driving in Germany the other month was a huge eye opener for me when I came home. Germans have MUCH better lane discipline on highways than Americans do. For good reason though, driving on the autobahn is stressful. All trucks are limited to 90km/h (about 56mph) and are almost always forbidden (thank god) from the left lane. Driving on the autobahn is like this. I have cruise set at 130-140km/h. Have to get over to pass a truck. Quickly have to get back out of the left lane to let the Mercedes flying down the road at 200km/h+ pass. Then immediately get back into the left lane to pass the next truck going 90km/h, repeat. Nobody hogged the left lane and nobody stayed there any longer than necessary. Driving in cities there was also much less stressful because of generally slower speeds, roundabouts making things much easier and smoother than stop signs/stop lights. But highways, yeah there's no comparison between German drivers and American drivers when it comes to lane discipline at the bare minimum.
Coming home made me realize how terrible and generally impolite and impatient American drivers are. Driving fast doesn't mean impatient, you can drive fast while still being courteous to other drivers, letting them into your lane when needed etc. Each region I find has distinct driving styles.
Northeast: People generally drive fast, and in the cases of places like NJ, and Massachussetts, fairly aggressively. But they aren't what I'd call "bad" drivers. Driving and surviving in say, Northern NJ requires some level of driving skill. So despite the expectation, these are the states with some of the lowest fatality rate per vehicle mile travelled in the country.
Midwest drivers tend to drive too slow, often under the speed limit on flat, straight open highways. Sometimes in the left lane, sometimes not. But midwestern drivers in general compared to Northeastern drivers are safe, but agonizingly slow.
Western drivers in places like Nevada, California, Utah are actually just insane.
Southern drivers, NC, SC, GA, in general are comparatively bad drivers that don't know how to drive. Driving in the south is actually scary sometimes because you have no idea what people are going to do. In NJ its easy to predict what someone is going to do, just expect their going to squeeze their way into that gap. In the south its a total free for all. Also turn signals are non-existent there. I once sat at a stoplight in NC and watched the number of cars that used their turn signals. Out of 30 cars that turned left at the intersection I was watching, 7 of them used turn signals. Its really bad.
I generally prefer to do my long distance driving at night, far less traffic to deal with then.
. I am the one adjusting my speed to make sure I make a graceful entrance at the flow of traffic, at, below or above the speed limit depending on the situation. .
