Yes, but in the US, the waiter taking the card out of your view, doing something with it, then bringing it back is the norm.

I'd never seen a restaurant do that in the UK.

I think it's a relic of the times before handheld payment terminals existed.

Also, having to decide on a tip percentage directly in front of the waiter is awkward sometimes, doing it the US way avoids that. Tipping is very common in the US.

I would say 95% of the restaurants I go to take your card and run it themselves.

That’s insane. Here in Canada the waiter/waitress brings a portable pos terminal to the table and you pay through that. I’d be incredibly uncomfortable if they ran away with my credit card.

We had that locally. They're abandoning it, citywide. Nobody liked it, it was cumbersome and invasive, it involved your credit card anyway but was a worse experience for everybody.

How is that a worse experience? I don’t have to mess around the bill to add a tip, I just punch it into the machine and then tap my card or phone. It also makes it super easy to split a bill if you are in a group.

They have to carry it around. They leave it in the back, on the counter, whatever and have to go get it. They want you to hurry, they only have one of them, they have a lot of customers. You are interrupted to pay at their convenience, not when it's convenient for you. You have to fool with some gadget with a terrible interface when you'd rather be chatting with your sweetie. It's more awkward to leave a tip in cash (you tip zero on the device while they're watching).

It was a terrible idea.

You don’t mind the waiter/waitress standing over you while you decide how much to tip them?

The problem here is having a tip in the first place. In civilized countries, there is no tipping: the price advertised is the price you pay.

Why is that insane? I think a more appropriate description would be "perfectly normal".

Because normally you aren’t supposed to just let strangers wander off with your credit cards.

I offer up 40 years of my life as a counter example. Maybe it's a bit city thing, idk, but this is not the norm where I'm from. You get the bill, put your card in it, they take it and run it, bring it back, and you sign the receipt.

Right, and while they're away, they take a photo of both sides of your card and then sell that to someone, who uses it for credit-card fraud.

Has never happened to me or anyone I know. And if it did, it's easy to prove it wasn't you and charge it back.

I guess it seems normal, just like in your country it probably seems "perfectly normal" to have people walking around with deadly weapons.

I’d hardly characterize it as “perfectly normal”, although it is definitely a frustrating issue that provokes a great deal of controversy domestically (and seems to induce strangely aggressive statements from a great many folks commenting from countries heavily reliant on American arms for protection from their regional neighbors).

I can understand it being hard to reckon with when one’s primary understanding of government stems from a familiarity with countries founded in accordance with the desires of a handful of pre-existing, regional groups (as opposed to a country founded with explicit mechanisms by which new groups can achieve representation).