I like this thread. I'm a native Californian, and where I'm from, people drive fast, but somehow effectively... where I am now in California, the boondocks, everyone is on a Sunday drive. They drive 10mph under the posted speed limit, in the middle of nowhere.
When I lived in San Antonio, TX, people drove like they were the only ones on the road. You could expect to have someone switch lanes into your car, drive 35mph on the freeway for no reason. Instead of the normal merge rule, for some reason every highway had a yield rule. San Antonians read that as a stop sign, which caused me to almost rear end people many times, while I was looking over my left shoulder to assess traffic, seeing none, speeding up, and then swerving off the road for some idiot stopped at the junction.
Maryland/Washington DC drivers are even better! Everyone drives like they hate everyone else on the road and they want to get to their destination twice as fast as the next guy. However, if it starts raining, they slow down to HALF of the posted speed limit and creep slowly down the interstate. Can anyone explain that phenomenon???