I think a significant factor helping that to work is the mixing of all traffic on the street. I've noticed that in LA's Skid Row, where homeless people are constantly moving into the street on foot or on bicycle and they walk around in vehicle lanes pushing shopping cart armadas and so on, drivers are more cautious than usual and I see, if anything, less reckless driving and close calls there than in other parts of downtown, where pedestrians stick to the sidewalk and distracted or car-brained drivers don't look out for them. Just anecdotal observation, of course.

Different things. A country with lax rules is not the same as a specific environment with shared spaces, where according to known data it's safer to eliminate some specific kind of regulation and let the remaining part take over.

It’s not lax rules, in many cases it’s just alternative coordination — eg roundabouts