A light hearted account of a clients driving in Italy experience:

My father drove through a red light on a recent shopping trip with my Mum and I. It was a small intersection, and thankfully the oncoming traffic was turning and barely exceeding a crawl when it happened. My Mum screamed, gripping the dashboard, heart racing. I however, remained calm and composed. I could be so blaze as to say I barely noticed but for the screaming coming from the passenger seat. How did I remain so? Because I have driven in Italy.

 I would even go so far as to say it was a very civilized near-accident – the cars slowed down and allowed my father to join the moving stream without fuss. No horns blared. No other car even got close to ours, not even to prove a point. Thinking back, even queuing at an intersection in Rome was more chaotic than our almost brush with death (as my mum maintains). Though common sense would dictate that going through a red light, no matter which country you find yourself in would be more dangerous than simply lining up at one, it is with a bit of a giggle that I realise the ironic truth in this non-logic.

It was one of the first times I had been driven around in the centre of Rome. We were waiting at a set of lights, backed onto the bridge over the Tiber that passes by Castel San Angelo. Our car wasn’t thirty centimetres from the curb and walled in by surrounding cars. Seconds later, a scooter driver whizzed past our curbside window. I considered the possibilities. Option A: I was high, and what had just happened was about as real as Neverland; or Option B: the rider was insane and/ suicidal. When the first two didn’t pan out, I had to consider Option C: Euro driving.

The myth of Euro driving is as true as it is false, though it is circulated with such incitement of fear that it ought to be told across a campfire in the pitch black of night.

Yes, Italians do drive differently. But they do know how to drive. There is a controlled abandon to Italian driving; for successful navigation of most major city centres, you need to be alert, have a good sense of adventure, a vivid imagination, a little insanity, and car insurance.

There are often no lane markings, signs are posted right where you need to make that turn, and queuing at an intersection is more like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle than driving. Happily, millions of visitors each year arrive home safely after having been behind the wheel in Italy. In fact, the controlled chaos can actually work in a tourist’s favour. You can change course/ direction/ vehicles quite quickly, without warning, and you look like you fit right in! If we were lost or swept up in a moving jumble of cars, making sharp lefts at 50km/hr, or trying to turn across two lanes of traffic, we weren’t clueless westerners - we were Italian motorists.

 There are many informative websites that detail Italian road rules, licensing regulations and tolls. We would encourage all those intending on driving in Italy to obtain the appropriate information from those authorities. What we have done is put together a few general rules, with some light hearted commentary, that we found made driving in Italy a little easier. We hope you enjoy! 

Click on the left for the Driving in Italy page...