Speed limits are seen more as a recommendation; if you leave reasonable space between you and the car in front someone will cut in; we have a lot of three lane roundabouts, and large interchanges which are fun in the middle of winter when you can't see the lane markings (or when they decide to resurface it and paint lines a few weeks later); oh and I see plenty of people using their phone while driving every day.
The roundabouts thing is interesting actually. We have a lot of large roundabouts, which I assume stems from Soviet times. In more Western countries they would have traffic lights, but here they are basically a free for all - I think adding traffic lights wouldn't actually help traffic flow as it blocks the traffic further down, in one case there are two large roundabouts ~800m apart, and the road between is always crawling in rush hour.
Last year they repainted all the lines so each lane corresponds to a specific exit or two. When you enter there are signs showing which lane you should be in, then you just follow that lane and don't need to worry about crossing into another lane (plus the lines are solid so you can't, legally). In a lot of cases they have reduced roundabouts from three to two lanes, but the traffic flow has actually increased.
That has caused another issue in that because it's easier to drive on roundabouts, people now drive faster, so getting on is harder if there is a steady stream of traffic. This year they have experimented with adding speed bumps before each entrace (reducing your speed to 30kmh or less) which seems to have alleviated that.
Since they introduced these changes I can't actually remember seeing any accident on roundabouts, where as it was a common event before.
I've also noticed that the cars that offer the most 'comfort' to the driver, are the most dangerous for others - the luxury SUV's, the sports cars with high-torque engines, etc. I believe that the environment of the car begets the attitude of the driver - and in many cases its imperious, officious, classist. For some reason, people who drive the more expensive cars believe they 'deserve the road'.
Then, there is Hungary. It is easily one of the most dangerous places I've ever driven, and I've been around the world. Hungarian drivers seem to have absolutely no fear with overtaking slower vehicles, no matter the state of oncoming traffic. So many times I've had someone overtake me - me, doing the speed limit - only to have to crush an emergency lane recovery in split-second timing in order to avoid certain, violent death from oncoming traffic.
All around the world, driving is a cultural artifact. I sure am glad to have gone electric - slow, weak, but it takes me out of the speed-freak zone and puts me in the slow lane, where its .. relative to the other lanes .. pretty safe, all things considered.
Also, by your logic, French and Italian drivers should be really competent, but they're not. If anything, southern European drivers are less sensible than those in the northern countries, that tend to have more sensible, well-maintained roads. However, statistics make it seem that that is not the case. [0]
0: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/2019...
If that's what you got from my post then I've failed in conveying my intent. If anything I think that the median Australian driver is among the best in the world. Perhaps even better than the UK, depending on the metric. The only problem is that we're rarely asked to think for ourselves—everything has already been thought about for us.
Really the vast majority of drivers in every country I've visited have been similarly competent. The local variances mainly change the manifestation of badness in the remainder.
You can see many times per day how they overpass other cars (sometimes even in 2-3 rows simultaneously: one car starts overpassing, then another starts overpassing first, then third..) just before a blind corner. You can witness several times per day how in the middle of the highway where average speed is about 100 km/h somebody may just make a U-turn without using indicators and passing the double solid line.
You can ride 100 kmph on a highway and then suddenly there's a truck or a bus or a motorcycle on your lane coming into you because the driver decided that waiting 2km for the next place where he can make a u-turn is too long.
If you drive even for one day in India you'll witness all these cases and more.
Statistics of deaths on the roads incidentally confirms this.
Australian roads are unceasingly sensible. Every road is an appropriate width, every road has a logical speed limit, overtaking zones are clearly marked, heck, every bend on a fast road has a sign indicating the recommended cornering speed. All this sensibleness breeds complacent drivers that rarely need to engage their brains.
The UK is full of incomprehensibly narrow roads, arbitrary speed limits and a national fetish for complex muliti-lane roundabouts. And to top it off, most cars have manual transmissions. All this complexity breeds more competent, switched-on drivers.