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)
