All the things attributed to the American car-centric lifestyle were a thing to some degree everywhere. Then people got tired of it and changed it. Probably Europe not having much petrol also helped, which also explains the tendency of the European cars having significantly smaller and efficient engines.

There are plenty of cool videos of European cities that used to be traffic hells that turned into bicycle friendly walkable places. Though admittedly the hell part still exist for those who choose the to drive the cars.