Road Golf Italian Style

Driving in Italy is like playing golf. You must select the right club for the right driving context. For the auto strata big fast cars like Mercedes, Audis, and BMWs are effective. These cars will allow you to be competitive and not get pushed off the road by the impatient Italians who like to travel at high speeds with their lights blinking and horns honking. The custom is to ride up on someone’s bumper, flash lights, and then pass, when the slower car pulls into the right lane. Though there are speed limit signs posted, they don’t seem to have much impact on anyone. One time two police or Carabinieri cars pulled up behind me. I was going the speed limit, but they were driving so close I sped up. At first chance they passed me and sped down the road, though there did not seem to be any emergency.

 

The story above presents one of the paradoxes of Italian life. The population drives at high speeds only to stop for a leisurely espresso or relaxed lunch. Even in busy Rome it’s hard to get a waiter to bring a check, since the norm is to enjoy the food and company. So why the hurry on the roads? I don’t know, but maybe it has to do with the lack of upward mobility and personal control people don’t feel they have in Italy. Perhaps the roads give the populace a place to be in charge.  The sociologists can better answer this question than I.

Back road, country driving ideally necessitates another kind of club. As in golf, on a tight fairway, a player wouldn’t use a driver. A shorter, more efficient club like a six iron would be selected. In Italy this translates into any number of choices from Volkswagens to Fiats to Renaults. Speed isn’t as important on tight mountain roads as is the ability to corner, make tight turns, and downshift. Italians seem to love this type of driving. Big trucks especially delight is driving as if they were Alpha Romeo or Masserati sport cars. It can be frightening to have one of these trucks slip behind you and honk for you to pass the slow car in front. This wouldn’t be a problem on a straight road, but these truckers want you to pass on stretches of road that curve around blind corners!

In the United States people tend to drive in an orderly manner. One car waits his turn while another is moving through an intersection. The next car goes, and then the next. Such is not the case in Italy. It is up to the car at an intersection to make a move. More often than not drivers poke their cars into intersections thus forcing other cars to stop. It’s the same with walking. If you wait for the cars to stop and let you pass at a crosswalk, where there is no light, you may need to be packing lunch and supper! Pedestrians walk out into traffic and make the cars stop. It takes a leap of faith.

Sometimes one has to drive in Italy. If you are going to the countryside, public transportation can often be cumbersome. I try to stay on back, country roads whenever possible. When cars speed up behind me, I often pull over, letting the native pass. I bring good road maps with me from the states, and I utilize the hotel people to help me find the routes.

If you decide to play road golf in   beautiful Italy, there is no sense in saying, “Fore!” The Italians will only laugh, downshift, and speed by as they drift into the next corner!