Why do Brits drive a lot more dangerously compared to Americans? Is there just no courtesy when driving in the UK?
09.06.2025 13:48
Give me British driving any day!
I took my Iowa drivers test 15 or so years ago. I, and locals, read through the questions expected in the test while sat in the bar - it was quite a jolly time - and first time through the questions I got 2 out of 100 wrong. The locals did not fare nearly so well!
I do not go to that city any more.
That is a completely “looking at it the wrong way round” kinda question.
I took this ridiculously easy test at a computer terminal. I then went for the practical test. I failed because I did two things that I would have failed on in the UK if I'd NOT done them.
Edit: Forgot to mention that British roads are much smaller and more crowded than Midwest roads so more skill and courtesy is required to drive on them without accidents and since road deaths per capita are approx ⅕ of what they are here, they must be pretty good at it!
Why didn't my ex fight for our relationship? He gave up so easily.
There are SO many more things I could say about US driving - like driving in the overtaking lane, getting in the left lane because half a mile down the road you want to take a left, slowing down to nearly a standstill before making any turn yet racing up to a stop sign so that anyone else about to go has a heart attack thinking no-one sane would drive that fast up to a stop sign.
Driving standards in the US are seriously less rigorous than in the UK.
I took my UK driving test over 40 years ago when it was only one part, and was easy compared to the 3 part test today.
There are major differences between driving in the US and in Europe. The primary one is that in Europe everything is about keeping traffic moving - stop traffic as few times as possible. In the US the object is to stop traffic on a regular basis.
2 examples -
2 Traffic lights in Europe are even actually called Stop-lights in the US, because that's what their purpose is. When I moved to this part of Iowa there was a stretch of road that was annoying because over about 5½ miles it had about 6 stop lights. Now the same stretch of road has over 20 stoplights. I had the (mis)fortune to meet the city manager one evening and he told me it was his intention to have stop lights on every single intersection along that road so that those who lived in the city could get out onto that main road. I pointed out to him that a) since the city was on a grid, the locals would easily go down to an intersection a couple blocks down, b) that even the locals were driving the other way out of the city so as to avoid this stretch of road c) the city was losing trade because people from the west of the metro were driving around the city. d) if the lights were synchronized so that if you hit a green and followed the speed limit, you'd hit all greens. His response was that he wanted the traffic to stop so that people didn't speed through the city. I pointed out that he was achieving exactly the opposite since people were racing to get through the next light and, even worse, we're blatantly driving through red lights because they were so frustrated.
Just sitting at home with this huge cock. Who can take care of it for me?
1 there are as many “stop” signs in the US as there are “yield” signs in Europe. There is no such thing as a 4-way stop in Europe. Any intersection like this would have a roundabout where the aim is for no-one to actually stop. So, the US FORCES everyone to stop, Europe tries to make it so NO-ONE has to stop.
I took the test again the next day and passed!