Italian drivers see red over speed curbs

In Naples, red lights are treated as little more than a form of street lighting, while legislation designed to force motorists to wear seatbelts led to a booming trade in T-shirts emblazoned with broad black diagonal bands to fool the traffic police. Crash helmets are still viewed with disdain by many scooter drivers and tailgating is something of a national sport.

Each year some 8,000 Italians die on the country’s roads, more than twice the total in Britain, which has a comparable population. The social cost of the carnage, which includes a quarter of a million people injured each year, is estimated at 20bn (14bn).

Now, in an attempt to curb the worst excesses of Italian motorists, the government has finally introduced a driving licence with deductible points. Under the system, introduced last week, motorists who break the law by speeding or driving dangerously will be stripped of points. Once all 20 points have been removed, drivers have to resit a driving test before they can take to the road again.

Motoring organisations predict between six and seven million points will be taken from drivers in the first year, equivalent to up to 350,000 full licenses.

The introduction of the new law has been a shock to Italy’s motorists, who are accustomed to a decidedly laissez faire driving culture. Under the old regime motorists could repeatedly commit offences, pay fines and go on their way because there was no method of totting up penalties. Motorists were only banned after causing death by dangerous driving or leaving the scene of a smash without helping the injured. Even then, licences were often only temporarily suspended.

Despite its laudable aim, the introduction of the new system in Italy quickly resulted in chaos and has left transport minister Pietro Lunardi looking like a motoring version of King Canute trying desperately to halt the relentless tide of bad driving.

The law was supposed to come into force last Monday, Unfortunately, an embarrassing bureaucratic bungle meant thousands of points stripped from motorists on the day had to be reinstated. It emerged civil servants had forgotten to publish the new law in the Official Gazette, meaning it was not yet in force. It was an inauspicious start, and Italy’s inefficient bureaucracy, the lack of the technology required to impose the new legislation, bad planning and underfunding threaten to make the new law yet another paper tiger.

A national computerised network for recording millions of individual licence records is still not ready, leaving police officers to record infractions by hand. But the man overseeing the project, Amedeo Fumero, blithely dismisses criticism: "It only remains to link up the finance police and the carabinieri, and some local town councils. There won’t be any problems."

Meanwhile, the various private companies that manage Italy’s motorway network have said they need more time to install new signs and speed cameras to enforce fresh speed limits on three-lane stretches of road. "They’ve known about this for a year," said an exasperated Lunardi. "We are talking about 450kms of motorway. All it needs is some signs. You can see that in Italy they are not used to believing that the institutions work."

In addition, disgruntled officers in PolStrada, the motorway police, are complaining that they are having to keep many patrol vehicles of the road because they can’t afford to run them. And driving test centres, which are supposed to offer special classes to allow motorists to win back their lost points and re-test those who have been banned, say they don’t have enough examiners to carry out the extra work.

Surveys carried out before the new law was introduced also suggest that many Italians will take some convincing to change their habits. Over a third said they would continue defying the seat belts law, even though it will now carry a five-point penalty. And more than 10% said they intended to continue speeding, even though exceeding the limit by 40kmph will bring an immediate ban of up to three months and a possible fine of 1,300 (900).

Nevertheless, there are some signs that the government’s television campaign may have made some headway in convincing motorists - at least those in the traditionally more disciplined north - that disregarding the highway code will no longer be tolerated.

Last week, during the rush hour in Milan, it was apparent that the threat of being stripped of five points was encouraging drivers to belt up in unprecedented numbers. A snapshot survey found that around 70% were wearing seat belts.

Paolo Montagna, of the Italian Automobile Club, said: "It is usually only around 30% who use them. Now it’s vice versa."

He, for one, is delighted with the new law. "We have been campaigning for ten years for the points licence. It isn’t enough just to fine people. Also, it’s fairer because better off people can more easily afford fines."

Montagna dismisses last Monday’s shambles and is optimistic that the law will reduce the terrible death toll on Italy’s roads, eventually. "I think we’ll need to wait for about a year to be able to see a real change in people’s behaviour."

One motorist who is wholly in favour of the new regulations is Paola Pravalino, a 32-year-old computer sales executive from Milan. Her job means she covers 50,000km a year and she is blunt in her assessment of Italian drivers.

"They drive like crazy," she said.

"They have no respect for anything. We have to improve our behaviour on the roads."

But Pravalino is less optimistic that such improvements will come easily.

"It will take much longer than one year to change people’s behaviour. I think a lot of people will lose their licences."

One young man from Mantova is already going by foot. On the day of the new regime, the 21-year-old, who has not been named, lost 10 points for speeding in the city centre, and another 10 because he had held a licence for less than five years.

DICING WITH DEATH IN SICILY

HAVING driven through the lawless slums of Kingston and braved the chaotic streets of Mexico City, I was unperturbed as I took to the road in Palermo. Little did I know what lay in store, writes Camillo Fracassini, Foreign Editor

It is an experience which still makes me shudder today. The image of my wife and I united in abject terror - adrift in a sea of speeding Sicilian drivers, incapable of finding our way home and wrestling with the dodgy gearstick of our rental car amid a cacophony of hooting horns - is seared on my memory.

In fact, our Sicilian holiday began with an alarming roadside encounter with the forces of law and order within hours of arriving on the island. As we drove to our first stop, the road blanketed in fog, we found ourselves face to face with a group of gun-wielding Carabinieri who demanded to see our documents. Satisfied that we were not Cosa Nostra, we were allowed on our way.

Far more frightening, however, was our trip from Monreale, a small hill-town south-west of Palermo, to the seaside resort of Mondello on the other side of the city. The first leg of the journey, through the centre of Palermo, was hair-raising; the main challenge being deciding what signs and traffic signals to obey. The answer, I discovered after several near misses, was to ignore them all and focus on avoiding the other motorists zigzagging in and out of my path.

Within minutes we found ourselves on a multi-lane road that I can only compare to a Wall of Death. Surrounded by a throng of traffic travelling at high speed I found myself pushing the accelerator pedal closer and closer to the floor.

It was at this point that the gear stick of the Peugeot 106 gave out and the car was stuck in neutral, leaving us to drift over on to the hard shoulder as I yanked at the faulty piece of machinery.

Finally, a passing Sicilian motorist agreed to guide us home. Fortunately, our car sprang back into action and we followed him at close quarters, weaving in and out of the other traffic at high speed.

I had passed the Italian driving test.