Roman Motors

Borzoi

Just back from a few days there, couple of things I noticed

1) You would have to be insane to drive there. Road lanes are what you make them, especially on the wider roads. Motorbikes and scooters are everywhere - far more than here, and more aggressive. Traffic lights are non existant outside the city centre, major crossroads with no effective signs.

2) Ferrari has a shop - all sorts of memorbillia. €18 for a mug. €800 for a Modena piston and con rod on presentaion base. F1 car in lobby but not dated, and I'm not enogh of a F1 fan to tell which is which. Actually I was dissapointed by their lack of anything besides F1 kit.

3) Smart cars are everywhere. Sitting outside at a Pizzeria it looked like about 6-7% of the city traffic - amazing for such a minority brand

4) Car prices. Fiat Stilo €13000 there, basic model €18000 here

impr0v

Two incidents that stuck in my mind from going there:

First was on the way into Rome from Fiumicino, every car is about a metre and a half from one another, doing nearly 60. The taxi driver, busy chatting with his mate in the passenger seat, doesn't check his mirror and goes to change lane, nearly flattens a scooter, just spotting him in time. The scooter gets ahead, and the taxi pulls over behind him. The scooter rider desides to express his dissatisfaction with the taxi driver's antics by suddenly holding down the brakes. The taxi-driver, mid-sentence with his mate again, spots this late and has to jam hard to avoid him. Cue loud and sustained gouts of what sounded like swear words and some wild gesticulation.

The second was while sitting having a coffee in Piazza Barberini, hearing the approaching sounds of sirens. This was about 10:30 at night, when most of the traffic had died down, but the tourist hordes are still about on foot. The piazza is down a hill at the bottom of Via Veneto, and around a fairly tight corner, almost 90 degrees. Via Veneto has four lanes and a raised island in the middle, and is well populated with tourists, being quite close to the Spanish Steps and a lot of expensive American friendly hotels. The sirens get closer and a cop car appears in a blur around the corner, in a perfectly executed drift, well sideways with two standard issue slicked hair stud Italian cops in control of it. If anyone was crossing the street they were finished, such was the speed of this manoeuvre, absolute madness.

unkel

impr0v wrote:

Cue loud and sustained gouts of what sounded like swear words and some wild gesticulation

che cazzo fai