In Italy traffic is mostly chaotic. The further south you go more chaotic traffic is. In fact, I live here in the Northern Italy and in the beginning the local driving style scared me even if the Italians claim that here the traffic is calm and people drive in an organized manner. Sometimes it seems that the road signs are only decorations at the roadside. For example, speed limits, from our village to Como the speed limit of 50 km/h is valid for most of the way. Rarely, however, I drive 50 km/h, the average speed is usually a 60-70 km/h depending on the traffic. Today, it is almost annoying, if someone drives in accordance with the speed limits. Usually, these law-abiding drivers, are older women driving an old Fiat Panda. In many motorways in Italy there is the Safety Tutor system, i.e. the system measures the average speed of a car within a certain range. With this system, speeds have dropped and rarely nowadays, it happens that in a few seconds a Ferrari blinking lights appears from nowhere behind you.
Urban traffic is, let’s say, interesting. In every intersection, there are several cars side by side, regardless of the number of traffic lanes. Generally, as many cars as fit, and then surprisingly these cars proceed their they in harmony in different directions. Traffic circles, have become very popular in recent years and there the Italians have their own rules. The most important is to use indicators so that you indicate “inward”, i.e. in the direction of rotation, as otherwise there is a risk of getting hit by somebody that is entering the traffic circle. I have seen the police forces use the indicators this way. Very rarely I have seen someone using the indicators so that they indicate when leaving the traffic circle. You can stop the car in practice everywhere for a brief time if you put your blinkers on. Once in one of the main roads in Como a car had stopped near the intersection with the blinkers on, as a result traffic got jammed because instead of 4 lanes there were suddenly only three lines available without any warning. But no one used the horn, because this car was obviously stopped only temporarily. The traffic is very flexible and aggressive here.
Traffic control here is almost non-existent. Only the Safety Tutor system in motorways and in recent years in urban areas several speed control cameras have been installed. As a result, people are speeding, but when there is a speed control camera they drop the speed to 30 km/h (even though the limit is 50 km/h), and immediately after the camera they speed up again. I’ve lived here for 17 years and I have never been test for alcohol. Sometimes in the evening, there are these controls, but I have never been stopped. Here in our small village after the many diverse types of village celebrations the police could catch several drunken drivers, but I have never seen any controls after these celebrations. Old men sit in the mornings at the bar and drink several glasses of white wine and then they drive home for lunch. No police control ever. On the other hand, in Italy, today we have very tough penalties for drunk driving. If a certain limit is exceeded, the driver loses the car to the state and driver’s license is confiscated. In Italy, in the driving license there are a certain number of points, and the various offences reduce this number of these points. If the score will go to zero, you must participate in special “recovery” courses to gain some points.
Every now and then I have got stopped and the car papers have been checked. Near the Swiss border there is quite often the Guardia di Finanza (financial police) executing some controls. However, once I was stopped and the police was so excited to find out that I’m Finnish that they didn’t stop a truck that came across the border illegally, because that border is not for commercial traffic. They preferred to talk about Finland and how one of them had been there 20 years ago. Many years ago, local police stopped me twice within a week. The second time I was in a hurry to pick up the children from school, so I said that he stopped me a week ago and still I was the same Finnish lady, but now I was in hurry to pick up the children. He kindly told me to continue the journey and stopped the traffic so that I could continue my way immediately. In Italy, there is always a human aspect, also in traffic control.
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