Re: alfa-digest V7 #913

[Pottree@domain.elided]

In a message dated 7/28/99 9:40:39 AM Pacific Daylight Time, Ian writes:

<< As to the driving style, have you ever taken a coach ride along a corniche
 road in the South, with a driver called Enzo? At every church, Enzo would
 cross himself, before returning to the horn button and gesticulation
 exercises. Quite unnerving. >>

I drove along the WHOLE Amalfi drive, sometimes in the RAIN, and found the 
other drivers courteous and competent, especially the bus drivers, whose 
skill was nothing short of astonishing.  Of course, you must remember that I 
learned to drive in Boston, where I was also a cab driver once, which is a 
baptism by fire.

<<The other thing I have seen is persistent
 nudging of other cars to get into/out of a parking space, regardless of the
 damage done to either car.
  >>

That is the STANDARD way to park in Boston, too, as is the other habit of 
parking on the sidewalk or just stopping the car in the middle of the street 
and walking away with the keys when there's no parking place around.  Boston 
drivers can fit a 15' car into a 14'10" parking space backwards up Beacon 
Hill or they will never get home for supper.  And in Italy, unlike Boston, 
people PARK on the sidewalk but they do not DRIVE there when traffic is 
heavy, sending the hapless pedestrians scurrying for their lives.

In Roma even in a real traffic jam, there is something the drivers share that 
amounts to a right of way.  In Boston, by comparison, the one with the most 
dents always takes the right of way and the one with a slightly less beat up 
wreck yields or else.  I believe the carnival ride bumper cars was invented 
based on driving in Boston, however without the mean streak.  In Italy I 
found the drivers to be somewhat aggressive compared to laid-back LA, but not 
out for blood like their Boston brethren.

Charlie
LA, CA, USA

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