> I'm not sure what US driver education has to do with it, or on what basis you consider it "woeful". I got my driver's license in EU first (Slovenia). Then ha

> I'm not sure what US driver education has to do with it, or on what basis you consider it "woeful". I got my driver's license in EU first (Slovenia). Then had to pass it again in USA (San Francisco). The US test was a joke. No parallel parking portion, no highway portion, no complex intersection portion, no hill start portion (in SF!!!), no first aid portion, no ... many things were missing actually. But I did have to show hand signals!? Lol what. The US test took 10 minutes and we drove around the block. The EU test took an hour, came with mandatory 30 hours of licensed instructor training, and the instructor had to certify on pain of losing their license that I spent at least 3 hours driving at night during training. Nowadays the EU license, at least in Slovenia, requires passing a "stunt driving" course within 2 years of getting your license. It's been decided knowing how to control a skid in icy/snowy conditions is mandatory, for example. > a lot of them seem not only non-intuitive but also inconsistent There is a visual language you have to learn as part of the licensing process. You spend about 5 hours of classroom instruction before even getting your permit to start learning how to drive. There is a logic behind how the signs are structured and you don't have to memorize. Different countries do use different signs but the iconography is very similar for the most part. > The top priority while driving is clarity in messaging, not economy of space I find the EU signs faster to recognize because pictograms are easy. I've got most US signs memorized by now so they work like pictograms. But when you do have to read the sign, takes a lot of attention away from driving imo.