driving in rome

part two
a few survival tips...

never take your eyes off the road in front

Not even for a split second. When driving in Rome, you'll find that cars regularly pop out of side-roads ahead without allowing you sufficient braking distance. I think they assume you will simply move over and overtake them, but of course this is not always safe to do so. Cars also slow down and stop in front of you with no advance signals of this intention and often with no apparent reason.

expect the unexpected

Nobody would ever think of overtaking on a blind curve would they? Unless they're Italian… Road safety isn't their strong suit.
Just when you think it's safe to look down for a moment and put that cassette in the player, a car could be hurtling towards you on the wrong side of the road. I saw this happen twice just this very morning when I went out for a five minute trip to the shops - In the first instance I was waiting behind a bus which had made a scheduled pick-up stop on a blind hairpin corner on a 1:5 downhill grade and the solid central white line ruled no overtaking permitted. Nevertheless, a Mercedes came sailing past both me and the bus. Further down the hill, on my return trip, the problem of an awkward y-shaped intersection of three roads has recently been 'solved' by the Highways Department by not building but simply painting a roundabout on the road. Thus it is no obstacle to drivers such as the one who nearly drove into me as he approached the junction on the wrong side of the road, veered left at the roundabout (instead of the mandatory right) and finally sped across the centre of the roundabout itself, needless to say without giving any signals of his intended course.

five little tips -

Don't use your rear-view mirror much - for reasons given above, you just can't afford to take your eyes off the road ahead for long.

Give clear turn-signals. Nobody else does, but that's why they're always crashing. If you've ever wanted to make a difference in society, this is your big chance.

Watch out for parked cars. Italian drivers rarely signal that they are moving out into traffic from a parked position. Take nothing for granted.

Drive slowly. Okay, we know it's a drag, but as the risk of collisions is so great in Rome, the slower the impact, the better.

Wear your seat-belt. Again, Italians will think you're a real wimp, but a large percentage of Italian road deaths are from head injuries against the windshield in relatively slow-speed collisions. Around town you will often observe cars with a tell-tale splintered patch on the windshield where someone's head flew in at 40 mph in an earlier incident. Is it worth the headache?

honk your horn a lot

In England we think it's a bit rude to honk at other road users - Rather bad form. It's noisy and it insults their intelligence - we place the onus of responsibility on the other driver or pedestrian who may not be looking where he is going, and usually in England or the States people are looking where they're going, so we don't actually need to use the horn much. In Italy however the onus is more on you the driver to warn other road-users of your presence. To Italians it seems to be quite normal and even forgivable to be meandering in the middle of the road and not looking where you're going. But you who were minding your own business driving steadily along on a main road could be considered culpable for not hooting at every approaching side-road and pedestrian - It's as if the right of way is not actually the right of way, and your passing car is the last thing people expect to see on a main road. It almost seems to hark back to the beginning of the last century when by law a man had to walk in front of an early motor car waving a red flag to warn of its approach; Yet another subtle illustration of the Italian 'crisis-management' methodology, instead of using good manners, good will and a simple but effective book of rules to stick to.

on roundabouts...

give way to traffic coming on to the roundabout ahead of you. They have right of way, and therefore come racing in in front of you. This is a ludicrous European law, not in fact exclusive to Italy. Essentially it defeats the purpose of a roundabout (to keep traffic flowing quickly and safely through a busy junction). What tends to happen is that you get traffic backed up on the roundabout while it waits for a stream of incoming cars to enter the ring ahead of it, so the whole thing grinds to a halt, and fights break out over who should give way, given the reality of the system not actually working.

And because most Italian drivers know that the continental roundabout system doesn't work properly anyway, and because Italian drivers by nature don't like yielding to other traffic, they don't bother to give way at all on roundabouts, whether they are on or off it, resulting in complete anarchy. The finality of it, is that there are no rules. When approaching a roundabout in Rome, you frankly do not know what to expect, or how you should proceed. Even if you do stop to give way, whether on or off it, cars behind you will honk their horns or simply drive around you with black looks of utter disdain because you dared to stop in front of them and impede their own self-important progress for three seconds.