But once you have the license you can drive on highways without speed limits, where safety and following rules is important (while the free ride is a bit of a myth - many segments have speed limits, there is lots of traffic limiting speed and in case of an accident insurance restrict payment when going fast)

They've since changed it to 16 with 50 hours of supervised driving.

With my birthday being in July, I technically should have had to take a Drivers Ed course, but because I moved my senior year of high school, I basically got a lot of free credits because the state requirements were different and I would have had to essentially take an extra year of HS if they didn't just hand me credits. It's weird.

Despite the nil enforcement, they strictly follow red lights. I'm surprised it's not more lawless. In N. America I ask people "What do the police do?" and locals answer "speeding tickets". In France, I never get a clear answer.

While "It isn’t because French drivers are better." may be true for safety, I do find their drivers far more predictable than N. American drivers on highways.

They'll stay in the right on the highway, unless passing. And when they finish passing, they'll go back to the right. With signals.

At least in S. Ontario, drivers pick a lane randomly, and stick to it for ??? reasons. Signalling after its clear what their intentions are (ie: not a "signal" at all). Not uncommon to see drivers on an merge onto an open highway, and immediately start multiple lane shifts with nothing to pass for miles ahead.

It took a while for my French handlers to get me to stop angling my wheel while parked because of the bumper cars you mentioned.