Driving part 2

The last time I mentioned driving I was somewhat shellshocked at the way the Neapolitans have taken to cars. Italian driving in general is pretty wild, but Napoli is a distilled essence of Italy, an Italy without laws.

“Romans drive crazy,” says Maurizio, a Roman, “but we don’t like to drive in Naples.”

There’s rarely been a better example of a pot and kettle, but it speaks to not only the disdain anyone north of Naples feels toward this city, but also to the reputation of the Neapolitan man in a Fiat.

First, the disdain. Northern Italians say that Africa starts south of Rome. Indeed, Rome is as far south as most of the tourists come, except destination travelers looking for a day in Pompeii, Amalfi or the Royal Palace in Caserta (and then only to film something they couldn’t get permission to film in Rome). If you’ve been to northern Italy, from Tuscany and Florence to Venice and the Dolomites, from Milan to Torino to the Cinqueterra, there’s enough to explore for a lifetime. Why bother striking south, into the harsher land with sharper wine and fewer road signs? Why spend valuable vacation time wandering lost through the rough city, risking pick pockets in a region with 30% unemployment? There are answers, and there are reasons, but most don’t stop to hear them.

Second, the reputation. I call all drivers here men. It’s a very male world. Even in Bahrain, I saw more women out in public (one exception: malls). Walking through our little town’s piazza, Julie wonders if women are even allowed outside here. The only ones we see are behind registers, in courtyards gossiping around plastic glasses of wine, or naked on billboards. Oh, I forgot the prostitutes. One hazard of driving is the old man who stops to pick up a prostitute (all of them African, most of them carrying their kids around, most, one assumes, slaves). If I want to smash into any Italian drivers, those are the ones.

But I categorize the drivers as young rich men, young fashionable men, old rich men, and old men. These drivers can be either male or female, but female drivers here usually fall into the young fashionable men or the old men categories.

Young rich men drive very expensive cars, impeccably shined, and yield to no one. Their car could be an enormous BMW SUV* or a tiny BMW sports car, and we have no idea what they do to earn this kind of money (though at least out where I live, one assumes, unfairly, it’s either the Comorrah or Casalesi clan). They are extremely special, and therefore extremely impatient and will cut you off at any opportunity. In fact, how dare you even presume to “share” the road with them? They will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever stop or yield the right of way. If they are within 100 meters of your intersection, either stop or consider an alternate route.

*(no SUV here comes close to the size of the average American SUV. A VW Taureg looms larger on the road here than a stretch Tahoe does in the U.S.)

Young fashionable men may be extremely poor and barely able to afford their Fiat 500, but that thing is spit-shined and they are prouder of it than of their new sleek purple popped collar. They yield to no one. Because Italian youth live with their parents well into their 30s, this car is also the proverbial basement couch for the amorous young couple. The fashionable young men are extremely special, and therefore extremely impatient and will cut you off at any opportunity. Being the most creative category, they may even create opportunities to cut you off, for example by passing you on the right and cutting you off, then zipping to the left lane and answering their cell (which, on Italian freeways, requires a 70% reduction in speed) and then coming up from behind you and cutting you off again. How dare you even presume to “share” the road with them? If you can beat them into the intersection, you may continue on your way in relative safety, until you meet another one.

The old men drive extremely slow. Not slow like an old person on a U.S. highway, trailing the speed limit by five or ten in the right lane. No, old Italian men drive 20 in any lane. 20 kilometers per hour, or maybe per day. They are the greatest hazard on the road, all the more so because they’re probably 50% of the johns stopping to rape the slaves on the narrow street corner, too. They are terrified of driving, but what the heck, all the kids are doing it nowadays, and they’re at least as special as any of these young ruffians. Probably more so, because he remembers when this whole town was nothing but a couple of fields and a café/bar. At an intersection, assume this old guy doesn’t know he’s on the road, let alone where he’s going, and just go around him.

Old rich men are like the young rich men, but their range of cars will include a Mercedes with blacked-out windows or a Mazerati. One assumes they own this particular strip of road, to include all the businesses on either side, the slaves working every corner, and the utility companies employed to repair the road and pick up the trash. They’ve grown patient in their old age, but are probably more special than any other Italian, who is more special than anyone else. They may grant you the right of way as an act of munificence, but pretty much most of the time they are impatient and will cut you off at any opportunity. In fact, how dare you even presume to “share” the road with them? If you don’t yield them right of way, tomorrow that intersection will be gone.

I’m not sure what the protocol is for passing a horse. I guess just wait for an opening. The same goes for a scooter, the driver of which is holding the reigns of a white pony. I let that guy go.

I’ve concluded that driving here is about asserting your manliness, or your specialness, or somehow convincing the entire world to bow down to you. Honor is supreme. Yielding is dishonorable. “I am special,” everyone insists. “It shouldn’t have to be ME that backs up.”

In the States, the most impatient and self-absorbed drivers are the rich suburbanites. They are in fair supply, and they drive even bigger SUVs than anything to be found in Europe. A New Yorker profile of one of the super-rich suburbs of New York City said that money, while it may not be able to buy happiness, certainly buys impatience. But there are enough semi-courteous people, or at least community-minded people with the barest hint of suspicion that they may not be the most important person in the universe, to keep the rudest among us in check on the U.S. roads.

The advent of the Euro halved Italy’s wealth and impoverished an entire generation (probably more). Maybe these “new poor” Italians still feel as special as the American rich. There’s a pregnant concept.