What the roads of Italy can teach us about socialism

Before my wife and I traveled to Italy in 2007, quite a few friends were horrified to hear that we were planning to rent a car. "The roads are terrible! They all drive like crazy people," were common comments we heard. Graphic details followed about narrow roads and wild, untamed drivers who passed in all manner of ill-advised places. We were suitably concerned when, after four days in Florence on foot, we drove out of the rental car lot and headed into the Ligurian countryside.

To be sure, for the first couple of days it took all of our combined skills to get to the first few destinations -- my wife as navigator with the big maps and "Glenda", our rented GPS (complete with British accent), and me at the wheel trying to read unfamiliar signs and listen to directions. In those early days, we experienced everything from the big Autostrada to the smallest, windy mountain roads in the hills above Genoa. We noticed that even fairly 'major' secondary roads often didn't have a center line and people did, in fact, drive very differently than back home. But soon we became familiar with the basic road signage and the variety of vehicles we would encounter, from Vespas to the standard small Fiats and Fords, to BMWs that felt enormous (but would have been 'mid-sized' in America), and the variety of ubiquitous tiny 3-wheel conveyances that seemed to be the transportation backbone of the country and could not muster more than 30 kilometers an hour. Mix in bicycles and road workers and pedestrians and the occasional goat and you’ve got a fairly complete picture.

After about a week of studying how other people drove in all manner of situations and roads, I began to notice something: Italian drivers weren't crazy at all. They weren't wild and lawless or indiscriminate in their driving tactics. Quite to the contrary, Italian drivers were quite considerate, far more so than their American counterparts. They yielded, they accommodated, they watched what others did and reacted accordingly. As a country, their approach to navigating their country’s roads could be best described as being in complete alignment with their approach to life and society: theirs is a socialistic model of driving and I quickly grew to love it – especially when compared to back home in the It’s-All-About-Me world of California driving.

Indeed, an Italian’s behavior on the road is founded on a core principle of accommodating others. Every decision is based on what will allow everyone to get along best. If one approaches a three-wheeled farm truck (that would fit in the back of an Escalade) carrying two tons of hay, four sheep and a black-clad matriarch shaped like a blob of polenta, going 15 miles an hour, and there is oncoming traffic, one can pass, knowing that the other cars will simply slide over a few feet to allow this to happen. No honking of horns or waving of digits. No road rage. By accommodating the passing car, everyone wins. Perhaps next time you'll be the one needing to pass.

So much of our experience was like this. The Autostrada in particular was a delight. You NEVER went into the left lane unless you were passing. It was actually the ‘passing’ lane! Not the ‘fast’ lane, or the ‘I’ll stay in this lane because I can’t be bothered to pay attention enough to pass when I need to’ lane. The payoff for having to make the effort to change lanes and pass slower cars, was: 1) you got to go a reasonably consistent speed and, 2) you never sat in the ‘fast’ lane and fumed because it was gummed up with an endless line of cars trying to going 17 different speeds.

The delicate ballet of social driving is perhaps best exemplified by what happens on the Autostrada when one car is passing a slower car and a third car – going much faster (say, one of those BMWs) – comes up behind. The BMW will gauge how the timing is unfolding. If the BMW judges that the passing car can pull back in behind the slower car without the passing car having to jam on their brakes to avoid rear-ending the slow car, then the BMW will blink their lights, indicating the passing car should pull in. If the BMW observes that if they slow down a tad it will allow enough time for the passing car to finish passing, they will simply slow down a tad and (gasp) wait.

It’s not about the me, it’s about the we.

People in Italy pay attention to other people and make decisions that are best for the collective.

If I Were King, I would love to make these the norms of the road here. But sadly, I believe this condition is not the result of any laws or rules, but rather is simply the result of the broader socialist (small ‘s’) mindset of Italy. I’m no expert on Socialism (big ‘S’) and am both amazed and dismayed with the way it is used as a club in current political discussions, but it seems what has been lost is a gentle consideration of the merits of individual behavior based on what is good for all, rather than merely what is good for the individual.

I have lots more to say about this foundational notion and the inherent arrogance entwined in the roots of capitalism and democracy that at this very moment may be rotting away our very lifeblood.