Roman Drivers

During my recent trip to Rome, I enjoyed several excellent meals at local restaurants. Dining out from the hotel was a thoroughly enjoyable part of the trip.

 

One evening I joined Ben and his wife and daughter for dinner. We took an Uber to reach our destination.

 

I can say from that experience that the legend of the aggressive Italian taxi driver is no myth.

 

Ben and his family took the back seat, and I sat up front with the driver. I greeted the driver, who had the look of the disheveled uncle you need to keep your eye on at weddings. He spoke no English, but he turned and gave me a mischievous wink.

 

It was a hint of what was to come.

 

To say that the driver confirmed the stereotypes is too generic, so allow me to provide a few details.

 

I noticed no speed limit signs, but I imagine this driver would have taken them merely as suggestions rather than laws.

 

Abrupt changes of lane were routine.

 

At one point, the driver pulled into the oncoming lane to pass a slower car. To get the oncoming automobile to slow down, he proceeded to honk the car horn vigorously and repeatedly.

 

I turned to speak to Ben in the back seat, and he and his family were all staring wide-eyed and in a state of near-shock.

 

“If any of you want to sit in the front seat on the way back, I’m OK with that,” I offered.

 

Nobody laughed, but Ben did show me his phone's screen, explaining that the estimated drive time had suddenly dropped from 17 minutes to 7 minutes.

 

After the driver dropped us off, Ben looked at his phone’s map and announced that we were not at the restaurant he’d told the driver to take us to, but that’s OK because we spied several promising restaurants near the spot where we had been dropped.

 

Not that we explored the options: we sat at the first table we came to so as to recover from the white-knuckle, kamikaze taxi experience.

 

Sometimes legends, stereotypes, and myths are rooted in history.

 

And sometimes legends, stereotypes, and myths are the history.