Of course i say hi & thanks, these are "handshake" words I use automatically interacting with anyone. But no smalltalk, and outside the US, drivers are often silent too

Oh OK, yeah that's how I interpreted the GP as well, so then I still wonder how the steps described aren't the default or even just blindingly obvious to the point that doing anything else is weird. I mean I can see when someone is drunk and is annoying, but apart from that.