I use a combination. I use dd/mmm/yyyy, where I spell out the month. Today is 4 Mar 03, for example.
Lot less possibility for confusion there.
The other variation I've seen is to use Roman Numerals for the month. So today would be 4/IV/03. Haven't seen that much in a number of years, though.
Sorry, Willow; I'm not helping the North American cause much