Wally, I love ya bro but there is no way I can possibly not say you're wrong about Californians being good drivers. Despite the stats I'm going to cite in a paragraph.
I think it's true that it's more the attitudes that are different, but people here drive with an alarming casualness. Doing 80 tailgating without paying attention is the norm. I don't doubt that drivers in Canada have their own infuriating habits, but I found it absolutely incredible to say that it's some refreshing change and/or that it's laughable that I think it's bad here.
I didn't have any data offhand, but I was genuinely shocked so I decided to google it. I found NHTSA statistics (
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx) that California is below the national fatality rate per mile driven.
Like a good American, I'm going to argue against fact (apparently). Maybe it looks worse if you adjust for weather, or for average speed of travel. I don't know. I find it hard to believe that Californians are better-than-average drivers in any sense of the word, and I hope someone will back me up on it being at least a thing to bitch about.
I've driven between Seattle and LA several times. I think it's worse here. People are more decisive but they don't pay attention and make stupid decisions. In Chicago people are aggressive but at least they sort of know what they're doing.
I don't get it...