by Walt Hatcher
Driving a car in Italy is an extraordinary undertaking for an American--even one who has substantial European driving experience. The reasons are manifold. The roads are narrow with little or no shoulder. They are quite curvy, with many blind curves. In town, some of these curves have convex mirrors mounted to enable you to see if there is oncoming traffic. In the country, drivers approaching a blind curve signal their presence by sounding the car horn. This alerts oncoming drivers to slow down and move away from the center of the roadway. Further, the roads are used by pedestrians, bicyclists (who abound, as cycling and bicycle racing are big recreational pastimes in Italy), motorcycles, motor scooters, slow-moving three-wheeled motor scooter 'trucks' and large commercial trucks. Add to this the Italian penchant to drive a bit fast, and it presents a challenge to one's defensive driving skills on each occasion.
The Italians have accommodated to the narrow roads and streets and the general lack of space for cars by downsizing their vehicles. By American standards, Italian cars run the gamut from small to tiny. Their standard family sedan is a subcompact! The famous, but minuscule Fiat 500 is no longer than most American cars are wide. To be sure, there are some larger French, German and Italian cars on the Italian roads, but the vast majority are the smaller Fiats, smaller Alfas, Autobianchi, Innocenti, and Renaults.
During the time I lived in Italy, I drove a red Alfa GTV6. It attracted a crowd everywhere we went. The Italians tax autos based on number of cylinders, with a six cylinder car taxed substantially higher than a four cylinder, even with the same displacement. Hence, GTV6s and 75s (Milano) or 164s with six cylinder engines are rare. The GTV6 just wasn't extensively marketed in Italy, and the 75 and 164 are equipped with four cylinder 1.6 or 2 liter engines.
It's an expensive proposition to own and drive a car in Italy. Registration, licensing and insurance are high. Gasoline currently costs S4.37 per gallon and road tolls, which are charged on the autostrada mount to more than $0.10 per mile. Hence, if your car averages 21 mpg, the cost of gas and tolls alone exceeds S0.31 per mile when driving the autostrada. I mention the autostrada because that's the only practical way to drive any significant distance. The regular roads, while picturesque and interesting, are crowded, carry slow-moving traffic and pass through towns and villages every two to three miles.
Ah, the autostradas (or the autostrade for you purists), the lifelines of Italy. While they are far superior in driving quality to the national and regional highways, they rarely compare with our interstates or the German autobahns (autobahnen, for purists). An autostrada is generally two lanes in each direction, has narrow or nonexistent emergency lanes, and tends to be curvy (given the chance). This is partially explained by the method of construction. Many were national highways that were converted to autostradas merely by laying another two-lane road alongside. Therefore. many stretches of autostrada are two two-lane highways separated by a guardrail. And often the guardrail is less than 18 inches from the driving lane. But if you wish to, or must, drive a car and reach your destination within a reasonable time, the autostradas are the only game in town.
The tolls charged on the autostradas aren't really out of line when you consider some of the difficult terrain through which they must pass. From the town where we lived, Varazze, to the Tuscan part city of Livorno is a 140-mile drive along the Mediterranean coast. The tunnels and building and maintaining those suckers doesn't come cheap! And while I'm on tunnels and autostrada, always try to enter a tunnel on the autostrada whilst in the left lane. The tunnels are not brightly lit, and often the contrast between the outside light and the inside dark will obscure that heavily laden truck going 40 mph in the right lane. If you're going, say, 75 mph or faster (which of course you should be), and you're also in the right lane... but you see what I mean.
In former times, the speed limits on the autostrade (I'm going to be a purist!) were established in four tiers by engines with the maximum speed for cars with engines larger than 1.3 liters being 140 kilometers per hour (87.5 mph). Obviously, this was a hard law to enforce, so they didn't. But Italian lawmakers, being what they are, decided since the 140 kph limit wasn't being enforced, they would pass a new law lowering the limit to 120 kph (75 mph) and enforce the hell out of it. And so they did. The law was changed in early summer and without much publicity. Strict enforcement began immediately, with ridiculously high fines tor the lawbreakers (we're talking $1400 or jail, folks!!). Well, now, who do you think would normally drive at speeds above 120 kph in the summertime in Bella Italia? You've got it - the sun seeking Germans in their Mercedes and BMW's. The situation got so bad so fast, that the German government made a formal protest to the Italian government. So they changed the law (or maybe this was the way it was originally written and they forgot to tell anybody). Now - we think - the speed limit is 120 kph during the week, but 130 kph (81.25 mph) on the weekends and holidays and maybe Tanta Maria's birthday or any Monday falling on the 14th of the month, or... but you get the picture. Keep it under 120 kph and potentially save yourself megabucks, or multimegalire (S1400 is Ll,680,000). Having said all that, I must tell you that I saw no one stopped by the police on the autostrade during my trip to Italy in October. So there.
In the nine months that I lived in Italy and on numerous visits from Germany during tour tours of duty there, I never had an accident. On a narrow mountain road above Varazze, I once "kissed" mirrors with an Italian-driven Volvo. I stopped, picked up my mirror backing plate surveyed the lack of damage and waved the other driver (who had very courteously stopped) on his way. On another occasion, again on a mountain road, again narrow, I yielded space to an oncoming gasoline truck (he, after all, was on the offside) and some branches growing from the mountainside gave my car a few scratches. They were easily removed with some light rubbing compound.
Mountain roads are still as Italian as pasta, although the autostrade have done away with a lot of them. Did you know that most cars manufactured in Italy before World War II had right-hand drive to enable the driver to be in a better position to avoid a precipitous dive off the side of a mountain (look at some of your old Alfa pictures). And to this day, most Italian-made heavy trucks have the steering wheel on the right! Many of these mountain roads have stretches of only one lane with "pulloffs" to allow two vehicles to pass in opposite directions. And some of these roads are main arteries, not "scenic routes".
You can believe there is no secret to safe driving in Italy, but here's some advice. Drive defensively. of course, but also accept Italian drivers on their own terms. After all, since there is no center line on the road, how do you know that it isn't a three laner and the guy coming toward you passing another car isn't driving perfectly?
Move to the right, remember the four extra inches (see below), and smile, paesano.
The Four Inch Theory
As one might surmise, what with narrow, curving, no-shouldered roads, diverse multispeed traffic and drivers who tend to drive too fast, there are a lot of auto accidents in Italy. Some are real bellringers--multicar, multideath, blood and gore accidents. But many are light to serious fenderbenders--accidents which bash up cars, but don't critically injure people. I have made a survey of these accidents, neither exhaustive nor scientific, and have developed a theory. It seems that 80% or more of autos involved in accidents in Italy, wherein they suffered front end or rear end damage, show a point of impact four or fewer inches from the edge of the fender or bumper. So one may conclude from this a Four Inch Theory that if Italian drivers had only four more inches of space there would be 80% fewer accidents. I have but identified the problem and there are myriad possible solutions. Perhaps decrease the width of all cars by four inches, or increase the width of the roadway four inches, train Italian drivers (with some special corrective lenses?) to allow four extra inches when meeting or passing other cars. Well, I've presented my theory, let the engineers and bureaucrats work out the solution.
--Walt