You look in your rearview mirror, and there he is … he’s so close he could inhale exhaust fumes direct from your tailpipe, and he’s trying to mount your boot/trunk and drive into your back seat through the back window. Who is he? Who is this obsessed maniac that suddenly appears where there was no-one just a split-second before?
He’s the Italian driver, deadpan-faced and on a mission – to get as close as possible to the car in front.
Our friend Michael says it’s baked into their persona. After nodding in obedient agreement at an explanation of the benefits of a good trailing distance, he will promptly jump in his car and try to use his front bumper to scrape the dirt off the registration plate of the car in front of him. In short, he can’t help himself.
He? Most of the time, yes. But I must say that women have graced my rearview mirror more intimately than I would have liked on more than one occasion.
Women are more like men in the following respect – overtaking in hair-raising situations. Without losing their deadpan expressions. This is a curious phenomenon for a passionate and expressive people – an appearance so calm that one might be tempted to wave one’s hand in front of their faces to see if they’re conscious. It doesn’t matter what the scenario is either – they could just have had a layer of paint scraped off their driver’s door by a 10-ton truck going 120 km/h – pokerface.
But back to the overtaking. Lines – dotted, solid, or spotted – on the road mean nothing. Signs? Don’t know why they bother to put them up. Width of road? Immaterial. If they want to overtake – I think there’s a hormone that kicks in and "takes over" (sorry) – out they pull, and forward they go. It’s a rare occasion – imminent death (for themselves) being the only remote possibility – that they would pull back in at the same place in the traffic. And regardless of the closeness of the shave or the havoc they may leave in their trail ... deadpan.
It happens so frequently that, if I see a truck heading towards me on a single-lane-each-way road, I instinctively look for an escape route, and start considering how I might negotiate the ditch or rocky slope or river or whatever should someone’s bio-rhythms take them out into the oncoming traffic (i.e. me).
Sometimes they overtake even when there’s no-one to pass. This is a favourite practice on winding roads with blind curves. Our friend Al has a general overtaking maxim – the blinder the curve, the greater the irresistible urge of the Italian driver to overtake.
Al also has another maxim – if you’re a pedestrian and an Italian driver makes eye contact with you, you’re a-goner. It’s all over. This implies some degree of intent, and therefore assumes that said Italian is paying some degree of attention to what he is doing. This is far from being a given. Quite the contrary, in fact. It seems that Italians use their driving time to catch up on a few things, most notably talking on the phone (which they do all the time anyway and simply can’t help it), and day-dreaming (which they don’t have enough opportunity to do and therefore grasp the chance with both reckless hands).
Parking? This perhaps more than any other aspect of life here gives a visual insight into the Italian mentality. One could think of it as an avant garde design exercise. Parking bays? A waste of paint. Orderliness and organization? Huh? Blocking another parked car in when there’s oodles of space just 10 metres away is standard practice – it’s your own fault if you park yourself into such a vulnerable position. Protrusion into a traffic lane? Blocking the view of oncoming traffic? Pardon? It’s part of the design.
Take a look at Bruno Bonzetti’s classic portrayal of his native culture (http://www.infonegocio.com/xeron/bruno/italy.html), and pay special attention to the parking skit. (They are, by the way, all agonizingly accurate.)
Having said all this, I must say that driving on the freeways (which we do probably less than 30% of our driving time) is a refreshing experience when compared with the
What all of this ultimately adds up to is a precarious and pericoloso driving environment that doesn’t exactly rank amongst the best in the world – International Living ranks it amongst the 20 worst. This has a direct affect on the rates of insurance, which are I believe the highest in
It also has a sinister side – death. Here they cover wrecked cars with white sheets if there was a fatality. A few weeks ago, 4 young guys in a BMW were killed in the wee hours on a freeway somewhere up near
With all our technical know-how and innovation and capacity for creativity, how utterly foolish we can be at times ...
1 comment:
Ah the memories this brings back. Hair raising on the autostrada, downright faith promoting on the narrow country roads.
I never liked Fiats until I drove in Italy - I learned very quickly just why they are so popular.
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