[Isabo]

This evening I drove down with my husband from our apartment in Milan to our weekend place in Emilia. It's about an hour of autostrada and an hour of mountain roads. Being driven was a bit of a treat for me as usually I negotiate it in my mini on my own instead of being chauffeured in an X5. This is the main holiday season in Italy so all the clowns are coming out of the woodwork, driving to their holiday destination of choice, but of course all the regular idiots are still freely available. For once I had the leisure to recline my seat comfortably, take off my shoes, rest my feet on the dashboard and study some other road users.
This is some of the characters we found on the road in 200klm.
The first pair were two german registered saloons driving in tandem at 110kph in the fast lane, middle aged men driving with their hausfraus co-driving, oblivious to the jam they were causing, the speedlimit is 150 on that stretch. No way would they shift despite, my husband Armando, flashing them, putting on his indicators, sitting on the tail car's bumper, in the end we passed them on the right. Identifiers: cars full of holidaymakers rubbish and no way were the two cars going to get separated. .
Another was some kids off to the coast in a little econo car, they tried to pass us on the inside on the twisty bit as we were changing autostrada, when Armando let them go because the lane in front of him wasn't clear these dirt bags started cheering and making coffee grinder gestures - the driver got distracted and almost went into the guardrail and narrowly missed hitting the car in front of him. As soon as we had space we passed them. The speed limit is 80 on that stetch, the kids negotiated it at a little less than that, if it's dry and clear it's a lot of fun around 140. Identifiers, scruffy, marginal car with four sweaty, grimy young people in it, laughing their heads off.
Leaving the autostrada we had a new BMW 7 series in front of us. This fool was driving dead on the speed limit on a clear, usually unpoliced road, his privilege. When we tried to overtake he would come out and block us, when he approached a bend he would slow way down, negotiate the bend and then accelerate very slowly back up to speedlimit. We stopped for a coffee for the sake of Armando's blood pressure. Identifiers: new, top of the range car with the lowest power engine, driver was wearing a jacket and tie when outside his climate controlled kingdom the temps were in the high 30s. He had a christian fish symbol on the tail of his car. I've often found this sort of holier than thou attitude goes with the fish symbol on a car. On a similar theme we had a little trouble passing an old priest, the old chap didn't try to obstruct but was unable to negotiate a bend unless he slowed down to 20kph and used the full width of the road.
Some other personalities we met several times: the housewife with her car loaded with shopping, or with kids she's taking home from an outing - too distracted to see other cars, often with a cell phone, in typical Italian fashion when joining the main road she will not stop at the junction, cutting in front of you, an accident is only avoided because you managed to brake very hard in time, she will then drive at a lowish speed to save on fuel and brake pads: The oldish man with a hat, barely in control of his vehicle and totaly unaware of changes to driving rules in the last 20 years. Men smoking pipes whilst driving - invariably slow, invariably in everyone's way, invariably oblivious to what's going on around them.
I don't pretend to be a great driver, I try to be safe, courteous, I try not to obstruct others and I try to enjoy the drive - but I am left speechless at driving standards in summer and xmas holiday seasons.
OK! rant over, who are some of the types you meet on the road that you love to hate? Mine are road hogs like the pair of germans, the holier than thou types with christian fish symbols on their cars (is there any symbol one can place on the tail of one's car that would rub these guys up the wrong way but would not offend others?), old men in hats, pipesmokers, anyone not stopping at a junction when I have the right of way who then holds me up by driving slowly until I can pass.