Linkology: The Best of the Internet for 10/14/11
Stories from Italy, Vol. 1
The big difference between Italian and American drivers is that Italian drivers are competent and Americans decidedly less so which is why America has a higher need for auto lawyers. The second difference is that Italian roadways don’t suffer idiots.
Let me explain.
On the Italian superstrade and autostrade — Italy’s two major highway classifications — there’s a system. The speed limits are 90 KPH and 130 KPH respectively. Speed is monitored by stationary cameras, which anyone with a decent GPS will know are coming well before they can get you. These speed checkpoints only serve as quaint suggestions to slow Italian drivers down for mere seconds, after which they resume their meteoric and extremely competent driving.
What you never see in Italy is a driver totally spacing out in the left-hand lane, futzing with their cell phone and Starbucks 96 oz. extra-whip Frappucino in their Escalade while driving well under the speed limit and swerving across two lanes. Those drivers are killed and eaten by Italy’s subtle gene-pool enhancement strategy. More on that in a second.
Italy’s left-hand lane is the crux of its automotive organization. If you’re going too slow in the left lane — and let’s be clear, you are — Italian drivers in their turbodiesel BMWs and Audis and Mercedes and Alfa Romeos will race up to your tail, stop literally inches away, and wait for you to move over. If you don’t, I suspect they would just ram you out of the way, but I didn’t test this theory. I did get shoved aside by faster drivers about 330,000 times, however. Once you’re shoved aside, there’s no gesticulation or middle finger or even angry stare — they just fly past you with a practiced efficiency.
It’s awesome to behold. The entire driving culture is a meritocracy: if you’re slow, move over and let the faster drivers pass. Signs are minimal, but they make perfect sense once you understand them. Speed limits aren’t posted every 500 feet so an ADD-addled brain can remember how fast it should be going; they only post speed limit signs when it changes from one value to another. The rest of the time, they assume you know what you’re doing. They do not cater to those who don’t or might not. If you don’t, too bad, good luck, thanks for playing.
And the curvy roads in hillside towns and the mountains? Not for the faint of heart. More than once, I found myself driving tight ess-curves and even legit hairpins on mountain ledges, off of which one would plummet over 500 feet to the Italian gulch of genetically less-than-gifted drivers. The best part? Through these mountain curves, where most Americans (including yours truly) slow down to a ridiculous pace, Italian drivers whip around them, car leaning wildly, with utter calmness. Italians seem to be more in touch with their cars, whereas most Americans white-knuckle the doorhandle the second the car starts to lean heavily into a turn. To us, it’s an emergency; to them, it’s just another thing their car does.
Finally: there are no shoulders on the highways in Italy. NONE. If you zone out on the autostrade at 130+ KPH, you have what I’m guessing is six inches max before you nail the steel girder road boundary and grind your rental Panda into a lawn statue. No margin for error whatsoever, and that’s probably why the Italian drivers are so good — the bad ones don’t last.
So, yeah. Some links for you:
The iPhone 4S has been announced. There’s a lot of whining that it’s not an ‘iPhone 5’, but the internals are 100% new. Would there be this much chagrin if the new 4S was called the 5? Or if it had a new housing? Phones are all about the internals, and the 4S is cutting-edge. I don’t get it.
How to get a decent meal at a bad restaurant.
Whatever happened to the iPad rivals of 2010? Here’s a (mostly) sad retrospective.
Have a good weekend, everyone.
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More links:
MIPRO Consulting main website.
