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Transportation Tips for Driving in Italy

To an outsider, driving in Italy can appear to be chaotic. To use an overused cliché: it is organized chaos. Many countries in the world have strict driving laws and those laws are voraciously enforced. Despite the overwhelming police presence in Italy, traffic laws are just not a priority. It is not like it is in the States where traffic violations are a major source of income for a community (on a side note – maybe they should be! Could you imagine if Italian cops adopted the small town USA cop mentality?!?! Italy’s financial woes would be solved overnight!!!). Due to this, Italy has traffic laws and they also have the “way of the road”.

Things to know about the “way of the road”:

1. At a choke point everyone will try to get in front of everyone else. Sometimes the old adage applies: the biggest wins. But not always. More or less, whoever gets their bumper in front of the other wins. Not much different from Italians and queues. You can’t get mad. It’s just the way it is. You need to play the game.

2. When driving, be very careful when changing lanes, merging, moving slightly to the left or to the right, etc. Scooters are EVERYWHERE! They can be hard to see as they are zipping up a shoulder or between lanes of stopped traffic, etc. You just need to be extra cautious.

3. When pulling up to a traffic light, every single scooter and motorcycle will snake their way right to the front of the pack of cars. When that light turns green it is off to the races for them!

4. This one is from a pedestrian angle: by law all vehicles are supposed to stop for you in a crosswalk. In reality they swerve for you. So whatever you do, once you start walking, NEVER change your pace. If you speed up, slow down, or stop, that is when the accidents happen. They are judging your speed and will try and pass in front of or behind you.

5. When driving on the autostrada, DO NOT sit in the left lane. If you do, the faster drivers will sit right on your rear bumper and they might even flash their lights at you trying to tell you to get over. The left lane is only for those going significantly faster than the right lane and for those passing cars in the right lane. If you are passing that is fine, but pass at a good pace. None of this “well technically I am passing because I am going 2km/hr faster than the car on my right. NO! When you pass, you pass quickly! Otherwise you are once again just blocking up the left lane. Boy do I wish this was the mentality back home in the States!!! Entitled drivers sitting in the passing lane kills me when I am home!

6. If you are on the autostrada and see a bunch of cars braking, even if it is not affecting you and you don’t need to brake, BRAKE!!!! It probably means that an autovelox is coming up. These are automated speed traps. There are usually warning signs in advance so you know it is coming. Italians tend to drive well over the speed limit and then as soon as one is coming up they will slow all the way down for a bit as they pass the speed trap and then off they go again.

7. Stop signs are only suggestions!!!

8. If it is late at night and no traffic on the road and you come to a red light, many will treat it as a stop sign and not a traffic light.

9. One rule that they never really break is that a car in a roundabout has the right of way!

10. In the countryside, bike riders are respected! In the city, they are fair game.

P.S. – I am not advising that anyone should break the law. I am just explaining Italian mentality on the road. More or less everyone is an offensive driver and not a defensive driver. So as long as you understand that every scooter rider thinks they are Valentino Rossi and that every car driver thinks that they are Michael Schumacher, you will be fine.

italy-autostrada-2007-3759.jpg

Autostrada toll booths, 2007

Autostrada toll booths

Italy has what is known as the Autostrada. This is a ticket toll-road highway system. The way that a ticket toll-road works, is that when you go to enter the autostrada, you have to pass through a toll booth where you get a ticket. You MUST NOT lose this ticket! This ticket determines your starting point so that when you go to exit, they know how far you have driven on the autostrada and how much to charge you. When you get to the exit toll booth, you then place the ticket into the booth and it will calculate your toll.

Here is an interesting side story regarding some clients of mine from about 5 years ago. When they told me the story, I was so baffled by it. To me, the concept of toll booths with tickets is so ordinary that I never thought about explaining this to a client before. I would explain the signs above the toll booth to a client that I knew was using the autostrada, but it never dawned on me that I had to explain how a ticket toll-road works. I am from Pennsylvania and the turnpike is just a way of life. What happened was, when they entered the autostrada, they got their ticket and just put it somewhere, not having a clue what it was. When it came time to exit the autostrada a couple of hours later they didn’t know what to do at the exit booth. When an operator came on to assist them, they were told to insert their ticket. They had no idea what he was talking about. They had completely forgotten all about the ticket they got as they entered 2 hours earlier! After going back and forth for a few minutes, the employee just gave up and opened the gate for them. These clients were from Washington/Oregon. I guess there are no ticket toll-roads there??? My clients were lucky! I have heard about similar tourists doing the same thing and being required to pay the maximum toll for that exit. Which means that you could easily pay multiple times more than you should!!!

When exiting the autostrada, you will find that there are 3 different kinds of booths, each kind is labeled differently and has an associated color for it.

Stay away from the booths that have the yellow signs above them! These signs say: Telepass. Or more technically they say: riservata clienti Telepass (reserved for Telepass clients). This is an electronic toll collection system similar to EZPass and others like it. Some car rental agencies do offer a Telepass rental. This will cost you a bit more money than paying with cash or card as you will have to pay a surcharge to the rental agency, but at least you won’t have any lines when exiting the autostrada. If you get a Telepass rental, then you may use the yellow Telepass booths. Otherwise, DO NOT use these lanes!

The next kind of booth has a blue-colored sign and it says “Carte”. Carte means: credit cards. But DO NOT automatically go to that booth unless you plan on paying by credit card, it is a credit card only lane!

The third type of booth has a white sign and has an image of a hand with paper and coin currency on it. This is for those who want to pay cash.

Technically, there are two more signs, but they are variations of the above. One of them is blue and says “carte”. But it also has a yellow & blue “T” in the corner. This is a combo lane for credit cards and telepass, either can be used in these lanes. The other is white with the paper/coin currency image on it (sans hand). This one has a blue corner and shows credit cards in that blue corner. This is a combo lane for cash and credit cards, either can be used in this lane.

The toll booths have a large display screen and by default are in Italian but you can use them in 5 different languages! You can choose between Italian, Spanish, English, German and French. When you arrive at the booth, if you are ok with it being in Italian, just stick your ticket in and it will automatically conduct the entire transaction in Italian. If you want one of the other languages, hold off on putting your ticket in. For you, the first step is choosing the appropriate flag on the touch screen, just like using an ATM in Italy. If you want English, select the British flag. From that point forward the entire transaction will be in English. You can now put your ticket into the slot below the green flashing arrow. By the way, this same slot where you put your ticket in, is also the slot for the credit card. It reads both the ticket plus the credit card. It should be noted that, the ticket/credit card slot, the bill slot, the coin chute, both change slots (one for bills and one for coins), receipt request button, and receipt slot are labeled in English and Italian so there should be no confusion as to which slot is which.

I hope this helps future first-timers on the autostrada!

Tony Polzer is the owner of 3 Millennia Tours which specializes in Rome, but also provides tourism services throughout Italy. Tony is also the owner of Italy for Wine Lovers, which is a company that specializes in education, consulting, and tourism in the world of Italian Wine. He is also a certified Italian Wine Ambassador, one of only 150 in the world.
 
I'm sure many people will find this a very useful resource.
Two extra tips:
Crosswalks/ zebra crossings - local habits vary - oddly enough for example in Sicily drivers tend to be undisciplined but they DO stop if they see you on the side of the road near a crosswalk. In Lombardy many drivers don't stop and you would be extremely unwise to set off into the road until you are absolutely sure they are going to stop.
Autostrada and tolls
You may think getting a ticket and paying at the toll booth is bad enough but beware, there is worse!
On the Autostrada Pedemontana Lombarda north of Milan A36 there are no toll booths but you still have to pay the toll! In practice you are travelling on what seems an ordinary road which then becomes a toll motorway without giving you the option to get off because you didn't want to be on a motorway. Large signs then tell you that there are no toll booths but you have to pay the toll. By this time you are already on the toll road and hence doomed! The solution: waste time looking for the Punto Verde (inexplicably far from the exit) and pay straight away (but at least you have a receipt) or download the app and pay later..........I don't know who invented this. When we were at the Punto Verde to pay the person in the queue in front of us had omitted to pay 20 euros 3 or 4 years before and now had a fine of several hundred........
 
I have trouble giving credence to articles supposedly written by professionals that don't indicate a knowledge of the difference between "BREAK" and ''BRAKE". I find the Autostrada far less stressful to navigate than Interstates in the US. Traffic circles are a gift from God that keeps traffic flow moving. Cars, pedestrians, bikes, and scooters all participate in a dance within available space, but all know when to watch, when to give ground, and when to take precedence. Two lane roads sprout a third middle lane for passing that is facilitated by people moving over and slow traffic being overtaken. I see far fewer people on cell phones when driving in Italy and also see a difference between what I would call "assertive" driving in Italy versus "constantly on the verge of road rage" in the US from far too many drivers.
 
I actually think Tony's article is spot on 7 a slight spelling problem doesn't discount it. I agree that driving in Italy isn't a problem, but that's because I've done it often and I initially did my background by researching articles like Tony's.
 
Seriously Alpinista??? I made a simple mistake because I was rushing to get it done by the deadline, which I made by only 3 minutes! For you to insult me by saying "supposedly written by a professional" and that I don't have the knowledge of the difference between the words break and brake, is completely uncalled for!!! I have been a member of the "Slow Travel / Slow Europe" community since 2003. I know you have seen countless posts of mine over the years, as you too have been a member of this community for a very long time. Maybe I am wrong, but I doubt anyone else here would ever doubt my professionalism or knowledge.

I think that anyone can easily see that this article was aimed at first-time drivers in Italy, simply by the content and the style of the writing. This article was most definitely not written for someone like you. You spend multiple months a year in Italy and have done so for numerous years. So while you might find that driving in Italy is easier than in the US, there are a lot of people out there that have anxiety over it. I see, all too often, people that are afraid to rent a car in Italy due to the stories they have heard or what they have come across online. My article was simply to give them a light-hearted understanding of what driving is like in Italy, while at the same time leaving them with a few tips that will hopefully give them the boost to realize that they can handle it.
 
I will be less critical in the future (but when the mistake is in CAPS, it is hard to overlook) and am sure you will spend more time proofreading. Thank you for the article.
 
I was terrified of driving in Italy during our first trips in the mid 1990s. We lived in a small town in New Mexico and were not used to crowded, narrow roads. I noticed on SlowTrav back when it started that when I complained about how horrible it was to drive in Italy people who lived on the east coast had no problem with the driving in Italy. They were used to fast, aggressive traffic.

After all these years I still find the driving in Italy a bit too aggressive, but I am now used to narrow roads. Still, I am feeling a bit nervous about our upcoming trip driving out of Naples to the Amalfi Coast. The last time we drove on the Amalfi Coast Road a bus drove into us (yes!). Hopefully that won't happen again.
 
It took me a while to get used to it. When we were in Anzio I was terrified to drive, and had some heart palpitations when Bryan did with those Roman drivers on a more open road! They got more aggressive than around the city where congestion makes them go slower. Then I got used to the "method in the madness" but still don't like driving on the Amalfi Coast, and Naples...o_O
 
My husband is a born and bred Boston driver. Even he does not like the scooters in the cities. We now always rent cars from the Florence airport location rather than dealing with driving in/out of the rental location in the city, even if that means taking a taxi to the airport. Tony's comments on the scooters are spot on. As a seasoned Boston driver myself now I find in some ways the highway driving refreshing in that drivers normally move to the right for passing traffic - even while those doing the passing often seem to never make it to the right lane after passing and sort of hang out straddling 2 lanes.
 
Good write up Tony, thanks.

Comment number 5 is spot on. Good luck if it ever changes, at least in the Bay Area. IMO drivers in the states, depending on home state, vary widely in their skills and attitude. We have a few traffic circles (is that what we call them?) and a few people are always baffled by them. Especially it seems those from Idaho. LOL

We had no trouble driving in France. Drivers were assertive but skilled it seemed to me. Germany, the Autobahn, meant pedal to the metal. Even in the so called slow lane. Doing over a hundred mph in the slow lane and being constantly passed by anything and everything on wheels. Except trucks.
 
I have so enjoyed reading your excellent resource, @Tony da Roma! It takes me right back to the driver's seat of a rental car in Italy. (And my first pedestrian experience in Rome - our lovely hotel owner mapped us out a night walk, and I can still hear his voice telling us to "just go at your pace" and the cars will drive around us...just as you've described.)

I will be sharing this with friends!
 

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