I noticed, a few months after moving to Texas, that the biggest problem I have with driving around the state, and the biggest cause of most of the traffic I deal with (including causes of accidents which cause traffic), is that Texans don't yield.

I've mentioned it to my home-grown Texan friends, and they just say "yup" like it's something to be proud of... but it shouldn't be a cultural thing... it's a safety thing. Yielding in traffic does not mean anything about your personality other than you maybe don't want a $180 fine, and prefer less traffic. I was taught in driver's ed that one "can only give or accept the right of way, never take it" and that "zipper protocol keeps everyone moving" but I guess that's not taught down here.

This is why roundabouts / traffic circles suck (You don't cut off people in the circle and slow the whole flow down, you yield the right of way to the flow of traffic in the circle, and everybody just gets to go, as long as there isn't a car in the way) and why merging onto a highway is a nightmare (you don't speed up and force your way in to the flow of traffic, cutting off someone travelling twice your speed and slowing them down; you yield the right of way to the flow of traffic until you have a space), and I think this is why people feel the need to tailgate (if people checked for space behind the car next to them, yielded the right of way to the car next to them, and then took space where it existed, rather than speeding up and cutting off the car next to them, we wouldn't have to think "oh no you don't" and take that last 5' of room in front of us to keep someone from cutting us off).