Belgian Chocolate: Good. Belgian Driving: No So Good

Belgium isn’t a big fan of stop signs and it shows. When you adjust for all the various factors, they have a higher number of traffic deaths per 100,000 cars than the USA. Besides the lack of stop signs is the scary concept that to show caution in Belgium is to show weakness. A car slowing down at an intersection actually loses priority to cross it. That’s right: A car barreling through an intersection would have a legal right over a car that had tapped its brakes to look both ways. The compromise to installing all those pesky stop signs is to institute the “right of way” rule that gives priority to anyone coming from your right. However some folks worry that this will make things worse because some drivers will be aware of the rules while others will not.

Why is Belgium resisting making stop signs required? "We'd have to put signs at every crossroads," says spokeswoman for the Belgian transport ministry Els Bruggeman. "We have lots of intersections."