Angelica

It's like this, see. You guys don't do it right. No, just hear me out. You don't. In America you treat driving like it's a responsibility. In Italy, driving is an expression of your personality. Okay, some of you do it okay, but mostly it's the brain-dead teenage boys who're trying to prove what big men they are -- they drive recklessly and call it brave. In Italy, we don't think about brave or chicken, we think about owning the road. Yeah, I know it's just an expression here, but there it's a lifestyle. If we drive like lunatics, honking and yelling, that means we're alive and loving it, and we don't care who knows it. Here, you act like breaking the speed limit is a tragedy, and if you get pulled over by the police it's the end of the world. In Italy, the speed limit is a suggestion, an idea a few people agreed on and then refused to worry about. If a policeman bugs us, we look at it as a chance to work on our verbal communication skills. Telling off a policeman is a point of honor with us. You Americans dent a fender and you fall to pieces, worrying about insurance and lost time. In Italy a car without war wounds is either a showpiece in a garage, or the charmed instrument of an experienced driver who dares the rest of the world to conquer him. You want to live? Walk away from a five car pile-up with a smile on your face.