It depends where in Europe you talk about.

There is NO speed limit on Germany's Autoban, for example.

Sign language is extremely prevalent in Europe for good reasons.

Though knowing a few key words always help.

We spent about 4 hours making rounds in a small town in Austria trying to find our way to Switzerland (to Geneva) - because we did not know the German word for Swiss - Schweizer! We did not recognized the direction when given so many times (there were many ways to "border crossing"). It was not funny when you knew you passed thru a cafe 5 times from the time there were people sitting outside to the time the cafe was closing for the day!