Skylines isn't even a very good traffic manager (the Cities in Motion games that came before it are much better in that regard) -- it's a good city _builder_, but not a good city _simulator_.
You have mods that greatly increase the difficulty, and make the simulation way better than simcity4. And traffic is working the way we European think traffic works in the US.
Although to be fair the dlcs improved that quite a lot (not enough Pol Sim, but I understand why)
You won't die alone, I'm with you on this one. I've said before I wish I could play Cities Skylines with the agent simulator replaced by the purely statistical model from Sim City. Though thinking about it again, maybe it could be modded in...
SimCity was a resource manager and city planning game.
City Skylines is a traffic manager.
This is the hill I will die on.