Mike Tommasi wrote:

> On Thu, 13 May 2004 08:17:13 -0500, jcoulter
> > wrote:
>
>
>>ridiculous driving in Italy is insane everywhere!
>
> In Italy, the objective is to get wherever you are heading to as
> quickly as possible; the horn is a device that gives off short beeps,
> like radar, it warns you of nearby vehicles so you can adjust your
> crazy trajectory to avoid collision. Hence the horn button in Italy
> takes up 95% of the steering wheel (the turning function ins
> secondary), you can hit any spot with your entire arm, with your
> elbow, your chin, anything and it will go off.
>

While I have not driven in Italy, I've ridden a motorbike there. The
traffic in there does have a the kind of logic Mike describes.

I've been, for example, beeped in traffic lights by a car driver behind
me for NOT lane-splitting and riding to the front. (Most traffic lights
I saw in Italy had two stopping lines, the first one for bikes and the
second for cars. Bikes and mopeds were supposed to lane-split to the
first line.)

It's also rather easy to learn. On a bike, one learns pretty soon to
take the panniers off for a ride, unless you really need them. It's
easier to lane-split on a narrower bike. Rather soon passing the lines
of cars feels quite natural.

Riding back north, I was also already using the horn in the switchbacks
in the mountain roads. Just remember not to do that once you've crossed
to Switzerland.

While I did not venture into a large city, I did ride on the autostrada
on my trip from from Mandello del Lario, near Milan, to around Isola
Vicentino and Vicenza, and I must say that I've never ridden on a
smoother road. The pace of the traffic was, however, even more hectic
than that in Germany on the autobahn. Based on this experience I'd say
that riding/driving in Italy is quite not bad as most say.

The Soave winery was somewhere along the autostrada; i could smell it
easily (well, the Soave works hardly qualify as a winery, it mostly
resembles a factory).

Cheers,

-Topi Kuusinen, Finland