A True Confession

I don't mind the Italian way of driving.

In fact... I kind of like it.

Let me explain.

When I was planning this trip, it became clear to me pretty early that renting a car was going to be a necessity. If I were traveling alone, it wouldn't be, but with three children and luggage - yeah, no way was I going to do this on buses and trains - mostly buses.

It stressed me out a bit, for the MO on Italian drivers is that they're crazy. Someone wrote me that driving on the mainland of Italy would be bad enough, but Sicily? What was I thinking?

And so I did worry. I worried that I would have to drive a manual which, as I mentioned before I'd driving regularly years ago, but not at all since then. I worried about my distracting children.

But what have I found? Well, first the manual issue, such as it was solved by my decision to take the automatic - the guy at the rental counter said, "Oh, it will be good - you will not be driving  Punto  - " he practically spat it out  - "but Mercedes. Is very nice car."

Secondly - this is not bad at all. I am honestly puzzled about the frantic warnings about Italian/Sicilian drivers I read on travel boards and so on. The speeds are not excessive, the mood is not wild aggression, and everyone I've passed or driven behind on mountainous curving roads seems to be taking matters on with great care. Maybe the answer is that I'm as crazy as they are.

To me, it's been a matter of entering into the mindset. Of casting aside my American driving expectations and rules, and just thinking like they do.

Let's move from the concrete to the mental, as it were.

The concrete, of course, involves signage and road markings. The speed limit signs don't say "speed limit" but just give you a number, circled in red. The exit signs are very simple: One arrow points you straight ahead to the final point on the road - Palermo, Catania, etc, and the other curved line give s you the end point of the exit road. You can't expect their signs to be the same as ours. Just figure it out and stop complaining.

It's the mental part that gets people the most, I suppose.

The issue, I guess, is merging, turning and passing. You basically take what space you can get and grab it. I haven't found other drivers unreasonably aggressive or mean. But you are expected to move and keep moving.

Here's something that might make it clear. The road at I drove on today - 640-  to Agrigento - is, I guess, the equivalent of a state highway, but it is two-way. The road is a bit wider than a typical two-way American road, and the dividing line is a solid white with no restrictions on when you can or cannot pass. The speed limit varies, I think from 70 to 100 km/hr, with the preferred speed nearer to 100. The etiquette seems to be this: If you are going slower than the prevailing traffic, hang to the right, giving others room to pass you. And they will, even as drivers on the other side are passing as well. With maybe a motorcycle in there weaving in between the four of you. You merge as you can, and if someone else behind you decides that you're too slow, they will pull ahead and merge ahead of you. Or if you're pokey as you're turning...well..then someone is bound to just pull around you and go ahead.

So it's not as it is in the US where there are "rules" written down in the driver's ed book. There, is, however, a strong mutual understanding of what we're all about here and an acceptance of the fact that if you're able to move in faster and more efficiently, well, you're going to do so, and it's your right.
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I find myself extremely comfortable with this. I probably shouldn't commit this to "paper" since it means I will probably be writing of my accident on the way from Enna or something next week, but I find that this style of driving really resonates with the part of me that chafes at rules-for-the-sake-of-rules, and I like the freedom of being able to turn around in the middle of a road in Palermo without anyone blinking an eye because, well, if you've got someplace to go...that's what you have to do..