Americans who have travelled abroad...what do they do that makes more sense than how we do it?

I have made one trip abroad (not counting a few days spent in either Mexico or Canada…I’m talking Europe)...I spent one week in London and one week in Italy. When I arrived in London, one of the first things my wife noticed was that they are far more direct in their speech than we are…in other words, they call things what they are. Like the parking ramp is a car park (because you park your car there), the elevator is a lift (because it lifts people), the bathroom is a toilet (because very few public bathrooms have baths in them, and the reason you use them is you need a toilet)...stuff like that.

But the things that really stood out for me were when we got to Italy and rented a vehicle. First of all, the rearview mirror was kind of curved, and had 2 small extra areas to the left and right of the part that we have in America and you could see pretty much a panoramic view behind you and to the sides, even in your so called “blind spot”. It made me wonder why we don’t do that here, I mean, those can’t be that expensive, can they? Wouldn’t that help reduce accidents?

Then I went to fill with gas, and I grabbed the nozzle and it wouldn’t fit. I was trying to figure it out and someone showed me that I was trying to put the wrong kind of gas in the tank (I think the problem may have been that everyone pretty much uses diesel over there, but I happened to get a rental car that took unleaded and because nothing was out of the ordinary to me, I just assumed the main pumps would pump what my vehicle took). Aparently, they design the nozzles on the gas pumps and the holes in the gas tanks so that if you try to put the wrong kind of gas in your tank the pump won’t work. Everything here is pretty much standard sized, and I thought, OK, it might not be a HUGE deal, I’ve only known one person who actually filled his tank with the wrong kind of gas (when I was a teenager, my dad’s boss filled his tank with Kerosene..and lived to tell about it). Maybe less of an issue here, but why don’t we do it that way?

So, I’m wondering what you’ve seen on your travels that you thought…hey…that’s just common sense, why don’t Americans do that?