mica painter

Hello! I need some advice about my Italian other half. Since he (we) moved back to Italy his driving habits have slipped back into bad ways including driving when he's had a few drinks. He's out tonight and wasn't intending on staying out or drinking much but I'm still waiting for him to come home and he's called me to tell me he's drunk, so thoughtful! Anyway, I've told him to not drive but he's ignored my messages. Just received a text whilst writing this that he's not driving but he's gonna just get a lift off his even drunker friend thinking that's ok He never treats this issue seriously and says that he's never had any points off his licence, he's a safe driver ( if you say so, maybe he is by Italy's standards but not England). How do I get him to listen to me and make him see how it worries me and upsets me? If we go out next time and he's had a few I might just refuse to get in the car, as it seems he responds better to action rather than nagging

mica painter

Actually I just had an idea to give him a taste of his own medicine If anyone fancies going out for some drinks tomorrow night near me?!

Tweedpipe

When he's sober, drag him into a hospital or other establishment where there are very seriously injured patients, amputees etc being treated following road accidents. If you know of none, check your local newspaper or local tv station, as accidents caused by drunk drivers almost always make the media, and (here in France at least) they are hauled in front of a judge to answer for their madness.

philat98

The thing that scares me is when I read the local newspaper there is a page of squashed pedestrians, scooters, bikes, lorries and cars. The roads here are challenging enough without any booze.
The punishments can be quite severe too. 1.5g per litre in the blood and you can get a year in prison. I drove past our local prison today with a flat roof and 40C. Not very inviting.

mica painter

That's an excellent idea

mica painter

Yes, very true. He seems to think otherwise though.

tpw21

Lorna at Vicenza

It's mostly the norm where I live, but I'd say my generation - age close to 50 or over. I live at the foot of a huge mountain. The motorway stops when you get to my village. You cannot go any further unless you want to drive up and over a mountain. The foot of the mountains are a collection of small and smaller villages all within a few Km of each other. I'm not saying that people drive around mad drunk, but they think nothing of having a couple after work and then driving home. A beer or two or a spritz or two. It's also fairly rare to see a police car around here except in the height of summer when they hide by the motorway to stop check foreign plates coming down from Trento or Austria or Lake Garda. The local joke is that the police are like ants ......... they only come out in warm weather. I have heard locals being offered another drink, the last one, one for the road, go on, go on, go on, l'ultimo va sempre fatto. I have heard them sometimes say, "oh go on then." and I have heard them say, "no, no no, I'm knackered and up early tomorrow. No. Work tomorrow."
It saddens me that I have been hearing stories about tearaway, drunken teens smashing themselves and others up and the blame is always put on teens, year after year after year and yet public transport or taxi services never ever get improved. Never. Street lighting is also shite or non existent. Yes, teens are stupid but not all of them. I see more dangerous drivers zig-zagging all over the sodding motorway in their fast cars, zipping in and out of the fast lane with nary an indicator, cutting in as if they own the roads or overtaking on roads when one really shouldn't. I've seen them overtake on the hairpin bends on "my" mountain because for some reason, Italians cannot just trundle along and get there in the end. They can't be the tortoise. They all want to be the hare.

BRIAN 1

Lol,I love the knobs that get up your backside,overtake at breakneck speed and then turn right 100 yards up the road.

philat98

This seems to give the many Italian drivers a great deal of pleasure.

BRIAN 1

It'l give them a great deal of death one day.Twats.

Jake.White

The ones I get particularly furious at - and there seems to be bloody millions of them - are the ones I see driving up or down the A14 at over 90mph while yakking on their mobiles or jabbering at their passengers - and looking at them as they do it rather than watching the road.

I overtook one such fellow last year who was intent on fiddling with his radio and looking at it while he did it rather than watching the road, and consequently weaving between the middle and outside lanes at about 80mph on the A14 near Bologna. As I went past in the outside lane he swerved towards me and came so close that I blasted my horn at him to wake him up and I could see him jumping with fright at the horn blast. I included a few choice words with the horn blast and it certainly woke him up alright and might even have saved his skin provided he didn't relapse back into his old ways 5 seconds later (which he probably did)

I see so much of this uncaring and entirely naive and childlike behaviour on Italian roads and can't get my head around it as it has caused so many close shaves for me personally on my road trips down there and I can only imagine how many close shaves or actual accidents it causes for others on the road. Personally I watch the road like a hawk as I've learned from experience that if I take my eyes off it even for a couple of seconds things can change so fast and lives can end in the blink of an eye.

The Italians just don't seem to understand the risks associated with driving at high speed and I can't understand it.

philat98

I agree with you Jake. You only have to look at the roadside shrines to see how dangerous the roads are.
Recently I have had two near accidents on right turns where there has been an overtaking vehicle at a junction. Where the grass has not been cut at a junction they are very dangerous.

heritagestanley

Not to mention the horrible frequency with which young people on motorbikes or mopeds are killed or badly injured. I think that one problem may be that there aren't enough police on the roads enforcing the law

Jake.White

I think it's less a case of not enough police and more a case of the Italian psyche and/or the generally childlike or cartoon type nature of their collective personalities. As mentioned above you see enough of the ones who drive right up your butt at 100 mph flashing their lights to get past only to pull in in front of you and slow right down or who turn off after harrassing you to death to let them overtake .....

On the other hand, the chattering on the phone, or fiddling with the radio, or jabbering at their mates in the passenger seat without a care in the world, and consequently weaving unconsciously between lanes or driving with the lane marker right under the middle of their vehicle so that they straddle two lanes is like a kind of childlike ignorance of the danger they're putting themselves and everyone else in by behaving badly without actually realising it.