Italian Driving 101

Now that we are in possession of our very own rental VW Passat, we have come to learn the ways of the Italian driver much more intimately than in our one driving day on Ischia. Fortunately, we’d been warned in advance that the most important driving rule of all in Italy is to stay to the right unless you are passing; if you don’t, they will flash their lights, honk at you, and who knows what else until you get your sorry American butt out of their way. However, we’ve discovered several other idiosyncrasies of Italian drivers that have left our heads shaking or our mouths agape:

1) They tailgate like mad. It doesn’t mean they want you to get over (note aforementioned flashing/honking norm). It’s just the way they drive.

2) Lane use is optional. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen drivers meandering from lane to lane, spending much time lolling between two lanes, or 2/3 of the way into the shoulder. I’m not sure if they’re distracted, drunk, or just plain lazy, but we try to get as far as we can from these drivers when we see them.

3) Speeding is not only tolerated, it’s accommodated to degrees I would never have imagined. We have seen both police cars and ambulances – with lights flashing – pull to the right to get out of the way of cars that are driving faster than them (and exceeding the speed limit by significant degrees).

4) No space is too small to drive through, and you’d better get out of their way and let them do it. For example, Lenore was jogging and found herself nearly pinned to a stone wall when a car stopped near her to turn left, and another car came barrelling at her to pass the turning car on its right – a space that Lenore happened to be occupying. As Lenore pointed out, they seem to have no appreciation for the fact that, like hitting a deer, she would do significant damage to their car if they hit her.

5) Similarly, no space is too small to park in. The general idea seems to be that if at least half of your car (no worries which half) is off the road, then it’s a legitimate place to park.

Thankfully with Erik’s driving abilities, my map-reading skills, and Lenore’s eagle eyes, we add up to the equivalent of one reasonably competent driver, and have managed to get ourselves out of Rome and to & around the Tuscany/Liguria region. Now the question is how successfully we’ll be able to assimilate ourselves back into American driving when we all return to the great Northwest. Portland and Seattle drivers, you have been warned!

Comments

[JanJan]

And how doe this differ from your pre-Rome driving? Am I the only one to challenge this?

[Enrique (Erik)]

Ok here's my input...! We drove in freaking FLORENCE (Firenze), and it took all 3 of us to get out alive I tell you-Lenore smiling and imploring the other drivers, me completely freaking out, and Barbara looking at 5 (yes 5!) maps of varying perspective to figure out where we are... We ended up on the empty dead "bury the bodies here" mafia road, which was CREEPY considering that not that far away was THOUSANDS of cars, and there we were where absolutely no one goes. Don't go there.

We got home ok, thanks to the crew of three. Never drive in an Italian city without a good driver, good map reader, and charming lady to smile at men to get them to let you in. I'm not kidding.

Ciao Bella Barbara, it was fun!

[Barbara]

Ha ha, mother - very cute. You try it, then we'll talk. :)

[Shankie]

This doesn't have much to do with Barbara's Italian driving, I hope, but I'm sure it will be of interest to the Grimes-acquiantence demographic:

http://www.awolusa.com/page-2.htm

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