“the mainland basically went directly from bicycles to automobiles.”
Correct! Here we all grew up with cars. Big difference. I have many Chinese immigrant friends, and they aren’t the best drivers, although many of them are very cautious drivers. If we’re going anywhere, they always want me to drive.
>>Here we all grew up with cars
Worth repeating.
And further, many of us are old enough that when young, we were standing in the back seat, legs astride the driveshaft hump, arms over the middle of the front bench seat, with a great view of the proceedings while mom or dad motored along. This made the transition to driver much easier.