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December 17, 2003
The Italian Driving Experience (Part Four - last one, I promise!)
This is actually an editorial written by Ronald Walters in Johns Hopkins Magazine. I cannot for the life of me find this article to better credit it.
Twice I have moved to places where I understood neither the language nor the driving habits. First, I went from California to Baltimore; more recently, I spent three months in Florence, Italy.
My most difficult adjustment in Florence was coping with traffic. I had long been aware of variations in driving styles within the United States. No one who has witnessed the search and destroy style of Boston drivers or the philiosophical nihilism of a New York cabby or followed an aged VW covered with peace signs up a winding West Coast mountain road can be oblivious to Americans' varied approaches to driving.
In Italy, however, I was impressed by how consistent drivers are. The essential characteristics are a strong preference for acceleration over braking, courageous use of lateral movement, and unwillingness to let one vehicle occupy a lane when four can. Traffic signs are "suggestions". Pedestrians are targets of opportunity, although specially marked crosswalks, akin to medieval sanctuaries, theoretically protect them. We called the crosswalks "no-kill zones", but they afforded as much protection as Becket found in the cathedral.
Within a week of arriving in Florence, I was hurtling our Renault down a narrow street, being berated by my frightened American passenger for "trying to drive like and Italian". there was a Fiat on our rear bumper, headlights flashing in irritation at my sluggishness, with an aged nun at the wheel.
How could the descendants of the artists and artisans who builty the great works of medieval and Renaissance Italy turn into homicidal maniacs when in command of a motor scooter or a car? Someone suggested that Italian driving is of a piece with opera: extravagant, excessive, dramatic.
My theory is that driving is the new Italian art form. As Dante wrung poetry out of the vernacular, Italian drivers take humble metal, powered by lawnmower engines, and give exquisite elegance to the act of running red lights. Even an American raised in a state where cars are considered a body part can only stand in awe. It's enough to make a Californian walk.
-Ronald Walters in Johns Hopkins Magazine.
And finally, a little cartoon written/animated by an Italian that sums it all up.
Oh my goodness, watching that, I realized I forgot to mention the street signs (the directional ones, as I said before, all others are a suggestion). I could define the problem by saying that if you don't already know where you are going, you are screwed. But that would be cheating. Italy favors the dreaded traffic circle. These are definitely not for the timid. They do not summarize the direction signs AT ALL. Instead, about fifty (and that is only a tiny exaggeration, really) small signs are stuck in about five feet of space. If you stop to try to decipher it (and it takes a while when you non capice), all hell breaks loose behind you. There was a really hilarious example at the center of a traffic circle when I visited Naples. I would have stopped to take a picture of the mess but I didn't want to leave my children motherless.
Posted by DebC at December 17, 2003 11:21 PM