Comments by "Ralphie Raccoon" (@Croz89) on "Where did the rules of the road come from?" video.

@Azivegu I think the US overuses STOP signs where YIELD would be far more appropriate.
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It depends. In many European countries all way junctions are very rare and perhaps only found in the most rural of locations. Though in many ways roundabouts function similarly to all way yields, and Europe has a lot of those.
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@shizzlecrystal5964 That's why traffic lights in Germany usually have priority/stop/yield signs above them. If the lights fail then you obey those signs. In other countries the rule is usually to treat as an all way stop or yield.
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In the end, it comes down to speed. Most humans can only manage such a loose set of rules at relatively low speeds, when they have plenty of time to react to the highly complex nature of mixed traffic. As soon as city traffic began to speed up, defined lanes and priorities became necessary because an open road would lead to a lot of nasty accidents. It's of course why modern "shared space" schemes almost always have low speed limits (either legally or by design).
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I think before modern traffic rules, the vast majority of road users were not capable of going much faster than that. So you can see why it wasn't such a problem.
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