DRIVING - STREETS - CARS

The post of this week will be centered around what driving looks like in the U.S. compared to Italy.

                                                                       Fermo, Italy

Here in the United States the streets are massive. I remember that when I first arrived in this country, more specifically in Texas, I could not believe the streets were that big. Even the cars were bigger. There were so many trucks and SUVs everywhere that I could not stop staring at every car. Back home the streets are much smaller, they are so small that in many of them, if people hit and break each other's lateral mirrors, in most cases they don't even stop because the expense would be split fifty-fifty anyways. This makes you realize why I used to stare at the cars all the time back in Texas...Since the streets are really small in my hometown, most cars are also small for one particular reason: being able to find a parking spot. I say this because most parking spots in the U.S. are either diagonal or lateral, while in Italy most of them are S parking spots. Therefore, if you own a big car, when you go to a restaurant, the beach, or a party for example, you are less likely to find a parking spot that fits your car. 

The biggest difference between the two countries is within the actual cars. I have zero friends with an automatic car, and I only met two people with one of them while living in Italy. This is because we all drive stick (manual) cars, which are really hard to learn how to and drive in places with hills everywhere. Driving cars here in America is much easier because you use one foot to both accelerate and slow down. With manual cars, however, you must use both feet around three pedals and constantly two hands, especially when there is a lot of traffic; one on the wheel and the other one on the stick. This takes a lot of concentration, especially when you first learn how to drive, which becomes kind of instinctive once you start driving regualry. 

Another big difference is traffic lights. Here in America to go from point A to point B it takes so long because traffic lights take forever. So, whenever we drive somewhere, we try to avoid certain traffic lights even if it means making our path larger, just because we know that if we hit a red light, we are going to be stuck there for a long time. On the other hand, at home we have roundabouts everywhere, which is good because the traffic keeps constantly moving. Another positive thing about them is that even if they have more incidents compared to traffic lights, they are just minor accidents where usually no one gets hurt and there are no serious injuries. In contrast, when there are incidents at traffic lights, which happen rarely, they tend to create much bigger damage and major injuries. However, a clever thing that America has, and Italy doesn’t, is the possibility to turn right on traffic lights, which is something I have to remind myself of every time I go back home. 

Something that really annoys me is the stop signs...Here in the U.S., at least here in Peoria, at every corner there are 4 stop signs (one on every side of the street). This does not make sense from my point of view. The reason is because everyone has to stop no matter whether there are other cars or not, so the traffic is not fluent. At home, we usually have 2 stop signs, so that the cars that are on the main road don't need to stop and the traffic can flow. Instead, cars that arrive from the "minor" streets wait for the good moment to enter the main road. 

I think there are positives and negatives in both of course, and I understand that my point of view might be biased because of what I am used to; but it is interesting to see how what may be a positive or something that does not make sense to me, is the exact opposite to you. 

 

Thank you for joining this week. 

See you next time with something more fun!