Drive It Like You Stole It - or - The Blog Entry My Parents Will Be Sorry They Read

It’s taken me eleven years to understand, but from the moment the woman at the East Tennessee DMV said menacingly, after my driver’s license test, “You barely passed,” it’s clear that I’ve been an Italian driver.

I mean, c’mon - when you’re on a route that you drive every day and you can clearly see for lengths in each direction that there’s not another car in sight, is it really necessary to stop for three full seconds at a stop sign?  I have always maintained, no.  Turns out, unlike a few cops in the US, Italians agree with me. 

There are speed limit signs posted here, but they’re in kilometers per hour.  I have no instinctual guidelines for what 60 kpm feels like, and since I’m concerned about keeping a handle on the loose stick shift in our rental while navigating the unmarked roads that appear upon approach to be driveways, I don’t always have the available concentration to constantly focus on my speedometer.  But since one guy just passed me like he’s on the Talladega Motor Speedway and there’s a garbage truck ahead chugging along in first gear, I’m just going to go at a speed that feels appropriate.  And I’ve learned that no matter what speed I choose, there will always be someone (or more likely, something – ie, fruit truck, cart & donkey, or today’s obstacle – a herd of sheep) that I will need to pass, as well as a half dozen people who will pass me while driving at speeds greatly excessive to mine.

Which brings me to the subject of passing.  In the US, passing is often a passive aggressive signal: “You’re driving too damn slow/my engine is bigger than yours/I have a radar detector and you don’t.”  Passing in the US is often precluded by further passive aggressive tailgating and is occasionally, upon execution, accompanied by unfriendly hand gestures.  Here in Italy, all of that stigma is gone.  Frequent passing, on any road, anywhere, is part of the regular flow of traffic.  It simply means: “You continue to drive that speed and I’ll continue to drive this speed, and we’ll both continue on our merry little ways.”

Today on my way back to the Inn after a visit to the gym on base, I was headed uphill on a windy road that was about to straighten out.  The large truck ahead of me and my car were the only visible vehicles on the road.  Since he had just taken the last hair-pin turn in first gear and seemed in no hurry to change course for the duration of the long, straight hill, I bumped my little VW rental up to third and passed him with ease (no turn signal necessary, I’ve noticed).  Exactly at the time I was pulling in front of him back onto the right side of the road, I noticed that a cop car was waiting to pull out from the tiny driveway, errr…side road, that had been blocked from my vision by the truck.  My heart stopped.  Surely the maneuver I had just executed was against the rules??  Would this be my first run-in with Italian police??  But then….nothing happened.  The three of us – me, the large truck, and the cop, each continued on our merry little ways.  My maneuver, if not perfectly legal, was perfectly acceptable. 

After eleven years, and though I will continue to take caution in driving - only passing one vehicle at a time and probably never driving as fast as some Europeans - it’s nice to know that, for the duration of our stay here in Italy, I can finally put the menacing voice of that East Tennessee DMV instructor out of my head.