In Germany we simply have driver education which is a bit more extensive complex than driving around a block once and making a single T-turn, then putting the car into park at the end. Sorry for sounding a bit snarky, but the consequences of leaving out a proper education, including driving etiquette, should be obvious.

It took me next to nothing to get a license in the US. In Germany, it took me months with a minimum set of mandatory lessons required by law - theoretical and practical.

I also don't think the argument about needing a driving license asap on the country side works because it is the same in Germany. Only major cities truly allow you the be car-free. Public transport elsewhere can at least be spotty if not outright disastrous and comparable to the US.

While I generally agree with you, the concept of people acting as "human safeties" isn't unknown to us Germans - look up "Bahnübergangsposten" or watch any railroad construction site. There will always be one human with a manual horn to alert the crew whenever a train passes by.

I live in the US and am still astounded by this. I've seen cases where we have a portable traffic signal that's also manned by two guys.

There is a lot of featherbedding going on. Read this article about the Manhattan tunnel costs. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... There are people who are paid to do nothing because that job existed in the past.

A lot of times in those instances the guys are only there for the peak hours or when the site is active. The light lets them leave the site with only the single lane open and not require overnight staffing.

Some of the reasons are:

- When the site is active they often have a need to hold traffic or otherwise alter the traffic pattern to move equipment around. An excavator swinging an arm through the travel lane, loading a dump truck with debris that might fly around a bit, etc.

- The two guys are more efficient than the portable light at moving traffic volumes, since they can extend/shorten cycles as they see fit, and don't have to add in a big extra margin for the last, slowest possible vehicle to get through the work zone. They can see when it's cleared and let traffic through the other direction immediately.

Usually because the lane is only being shut for a few hours, and it would cost more and take more work to set up a portable traffic signal. In Ontario, if the roadworks take more than a day, there's usually a traffic signal set up.

Interesting anecdote: I was driving through North Dakota this summer and hit resurfacing roadworks. It was the first time I've ever seen it, but rather than setting up hundreds of cones and directing traffic through them, then re-arranging the cones to do the other lane, they just had a flagman on each side and a pilot vehicle guiding 10–20 vehicles at a time through the work zone. No cones at all. I'm sure that project was completed in half the usual time.