American drivers are extremely poor by international standards though - perhaps because of the relative ease of getting a licence, perhaps because of poor enforcement of road traffic laws.

Look at the level of road fatalities [1] in the US - comparable with developing world countries. I vividly remember travelling on the interstate in the US in the 2000s, and seeing a couple of burnt out recent wrecks (most likely fatal) by the highway side every hour or so. That's incredibly shocking to someone from the EU. For contrast, I've driven by the site of a serious accident perhaps twice in my life here in Ireland - which has a road fatality rate 1/4 that of the US.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

I think this has more to do with the prevalance of driving among the population. At least compared with India I remember looking into this, and it did.

Being a driver or passenger on a roadway in India is much more risky, but people in India are far less likely to die in this scenario because they spend so much less time in those situations than Americans.

That's a great point I hadn't considered.

So you're saying that in your neck of the woods 60+% of drivers aren't texting, the average following distance is >0.5 seconds (ideally always, but at a bare minimum when it's icy out), the average speed through a stop sign is under 20mph, people choose to stop when the sun is blinding them instead of hoping for the best, ...?

Suppose drivers are perfect though. Things happen. You can't account for every kid, dog, ... running out in front of you. You don't know when there will be gravel on the road greatly increasing your braking distance. Top speeds of 15-25 are reasonable in a residential area in the sense that anything more greatly increases the chance and severity of pedestrian injury.