Mid 30s Aussie living the the US. Yes I can drive a manual, yes I do drive a manual and yes I think it should be mandatory for 100% of learning drivers regardless of whether they plan to daily drive an automatic or manual when licensed.

The quality of driving here is considerably worse here than what I’ve experienced in Australia or Europe and I’m convinced requiring people to drive in a machine that forces them to consider the next ~100m leads to higher quality, more mindful drivers.

The two differences you listed improve traffic flow and safety massively!

Driver education is often more strict depending on country (I’m thinking Scandinavian countries and Germany), unsurprisingly this makes a big difference.

Traveling faster is a bit of a moot point. If people drive faster and rate of incidents and road toll are lower, surely that proves that travel speed isn’t the problem in the US.

But really, the drink driving culture in America is terrifying. The state of Texas has a similar population to Australia (where I’m from), 9,560 people died on the road in Q1 2022 in texas. Australia had just under 2000 FOR THE WHOLE YEAR! Both places have similar speed limits that are considerably slower than Europe, so I don’t think it would be honest to try and say the low speed limits cause deaths. My best guess would be that drink driving is enforced at 0.05 in Australia compared to 0.08 in Texas. On top of this, Texas only enforces if officers have a cause for lawful detainment, which is a high threshold to cross compared to random breath tests common where I’m from.

It’s incorrect to think of most road laws as being in place for safety, instead recognize that it’s largely a tax by another name. It is never safe to drive 20mph below prevailing traffic, regardless of what the sign on the side of the road instructs.

To avoid fines, pay attention and try to avoid routes where there are often cops collecting a toll, especially during quieter times when you’re one of a smaller number of commuters (and more likely to be the sucker who gets pinged). If you’re white, congratulations, you’re way less likely to be the unlucky party who gets pinged.

Exponentially both ways though I would argue, often, the slower driver is more of a hazard to other drivers!

If someone burns past in the left lane unless someone else does something wrong (like move lanes without looking first) or causes rapid traffic slowdown in the left lane either by merging poorly or being too aggressive on the brakes, they are more or less not a risk.

If someone is driving too slow they are dangerous without anyone else making a mistake - if you or anyone behind you doesn’t have visibility (eg behind a truck, around a bend, glare from the sun etc) then there’s a hard braking event, which is always dangerous. The more slowly compared to prevailing traffic they go, the more attentive other drivers need to be, the more dangerous it becomes.