Italian drivers have a reputation for being the worst drivers in the world. Every German I talked to about this trip commented that I should be very careful in Italy. All of the guidebooks about Italy we have also make this observation.

Our experience so far largely confirms this, especially as we progressed further south towards our destination. In fact, driving in this area of Italy reminds me a lot of driving in certain areas of Mexico. Here are our observations so far:

Italians use their turn signals, but not necessarily to indicate anything in particular. In fact, a lot of Italians seem to use them as a history indicator, as in, “at some point in the past, I made a left turn.” I have never seen so many people forget to turn off their turn signals after executing a turn or lane change. At one point, we were at the bottom of a hill after dark, and looking up at the highway, there appeared to be tens of small yellow fireflies mixed in with the red tail lights.

The white lines that divide between lanes are only suggestions. Not only do they sometimes straddle two lanes deliberately, but sometimes Italian drivers also seem to have a drift problem. They randomly drift into adjacent lanes and back repeatedly. We saw this happen so many times we were beginning to wonder if Italy has laws requiring drunk driving.

Speed limits are only suggestions. This seems directly related to the lack of police presence on the roads. I can’t say that I blame the police—it’s dangerous out there on the roads!

An Italian driver will always pass using the minimum possible clearance. On the highways, this is really mysterious because there is plenty of room to pass, but once we traveled on a side road for a while we understood why, especially when combined with the assumption that lanes are only a suggestion. It’s really an adjustment to the way people have to drive here. The town roads tend to have a lot of traffic jams, so if an Italian is only a few hundred meters from his turn, he will essentially create a third lane in the middle or side of the road, pass people with mere millimeters to spare, and then execute the desired turn—at least in that case it is somewhat understandable if not particularly safe. In other cases, however, the people who are doing are just rude—they are really just driving around the traffic jam in the hopes of butting in somewhere further ahead.

Consider the following situation. You are trying to turn left out of a parking lot into fast moving but heavy traffic in both directions. What do you do? Well, if you are an Italian, you slowly move out into traffic until the near lane can no longer go around you and must stop, then repeat the procedure for the other lane. Actually, in many cases, as soon as you cut off the first lane, you can immediately pull into the far lane, and people will route around you until you get up to speed and merge. We see this happen in groups of three or four, because once one person blocks the lane, other people behind him pull out also. We have even participated in a few, letting the Italians run interference for us.

Headlights are a major form of communication for Italian drivers, especially in the Napoli area. Flashing your headlights is a major way to make your desires known, even if the person you are communicating cannot act on the request. It’s interesting that the headlights are often used for the same messages that people from other countries use the horn for. Here are some example messages:

1.“Get out of my way.” This message is often used on the highway to request that slower moving traffic get out of the high speed lane. The request is usually delivered even if the car involved is passing even slower traffic, and can’t immediately react.
2.“No, I mean it. Get out of my way.” This is a high speed repetition of number 1.
3.“If you don’t get out of my way, I am going to run over you.” By the time this message is delivered, the sender is usually driving so close behind that you can’t see his actual headlights, just the reflections.
4.“Here I come, so don’t even think about pulling into the high speed lane to pass that slow truck.”
5.On a two-lane road: “Hey, I’m going to drive in your lane for a while.”
6.“What did you do that for? Didn’t you see me there? I have the right-of-way.” This message is often delivered to people who turn across a lane on a two-lane road, even if the sender is stuck in a traffic jam.
7.“F#$k you!” Ahh, the classics are always the best. :)

UPDATE:

After we got back from the trip, I told Martin Kuner, one of the engineers in my department, about our experience and he shared some information that explains some of what the Italians were doing, although it’s still not clear why they think it’s a good idea.

Martin says that unlike most of the rest of the world, the rule in Italy is that drivers never look back.

When you want to execute a turn, you turn on your turn signal, pause a moment, and then go… everyone behind you is responsible for getting out of your way.

Remarkably, the per capita death toll on the roads in Italy is about the same as the US and Germany. I am very surprised to hear this after driving there.

The other thing that Martin told me has to do with parking your car, and probably explains why our bumper got marred up while the car was parked: In Italy, drivers are expected not to set their parking brakes when they park and cars should be left out of gear. The reason for this is that Italy has many more cars than places to park them, so parallel-parked cars are positioned with almost no room between. If one’s parking brake is not set and the car is in neutral, then if the person next to him wants to leave his space, he can wiggle out by(relatively) gently nudging the cars in front and back out of the way. If someone’s parking brake is set, his bumper is likely to get dented.

That’s a “when in Rome” fact that we needed to learn before the trip, because I think that’s what happened to our bumper. Our car developed some nice little dents on the rear bumper one night in that very city while we were parked near the Spanish Steps.

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