Allora non sono l'unica che quando guida in Italia ha la sensazione di essere in un film di Mad Max... ecco gli automobilisti italiani immortalati su The Guardian:
Fatal attraction
Barbara McMahon reports on Italians' addiction to fast driving and efforts to come to terms with its terrible human cost
Thursday August 18, 2005
Despite a campaign by the government to reduce road deaths, the number of people killed every year in Italy remains shockingly high - some 6,000 deaths annually or roughly 17 a day. The victims are mostly young and male, and there have been two tragic examples recently. Three teenagers, off on holiday to celebrate the end of school, were killed when their car plunged off a bridge in Genoa while in Bari five young men, all aged 18, were killed in a collision with a lorry as they were returning from an afternoon at a go-kart track.
It is too soon to say what caused these incidents but according to the Automobile Club D'Italia (ACI), driving too fast and driving too close to the car in front are the main causes of road accidents. Another factor is the sheer amount of traffic on congested roads and motorways. There are an estimated 34m cars in Italy, one for every 1.7 inhabitants.
Evidence of Italy's shocking road safety record is apparent in the number of "altarini" or roadside memorials all over the country. On a stretch of road between Ravenna and Ferrara, one of the worst accident blackspots in northern Italy, there are dozens of these sad little cemeteries: a miniature statue of David left in memory of Fabio, 18 years old; a piece of marble inscribed to Giuseppe, aged 24 and a cross for Stefano, who was killed in 1975 just before he graduated in science.
The practice of leaving roadside memorials originated in Mediterranean Catholic countries and is not only confined to Italy, of course, but they do seem to multiply here. The further south in Italy you go, the more likely you are to find "altarini" draped with crucifixes, holy pictures, black ribbons and statues. In this part of the country the Church has a stronger influence and people are less constrained by emotion, giving full vent to their grief at this modern of massacres.
Michele Smargiassi, a journalist for La Repubblica newspaper, decided to write about "altarini" and in the course of two days drove 700 km (440 miles), stopping to photograph and examine these sad tributes tied to guardrails or erected on grass verges. He was intrigued by the use of plastic flowers over fresh flowers but came to see that plastic flowers were a way of people saying that their grief will never end while fresh flowers indicated that nothing, especially life, lasts for ever.
He says the "altarini" that moved him most were the ones that left behind a tantalising piece of the story - a soft toy, a football scarf, a single Camel cigarette - but he was puzzled by the numbers of anonymous tributes. No names of the victims or clues as to what had happened. Wasn't the point to record who had died there and to warn other drivers that these were danger spots? According to psychologists he spoke to, many roadside memorials, especially in the north of Italy where people are less likely to be practising Catholics, are silent messages of anger and sorrow. "By not leaving any identification, people are saying: "This grief is mine, only mine. No one else can understand it," says Smargiassi.
There are encouraging signs that the Italian government's "patente a punti" (points-based driving licence) policy is having an effect on driver behaviour and consequently, reducing road casualties. Each person has 20 points on their driving licence and points are deducted for speeding and other bad practices. Drivers who get down to 10 points risk having their licences suspended for a period of at least one to three months. More importantly, newly qualified drivers are subjected to double penalty points for driving offences for their first three years on the road. Additional measures include flashing warning signs on motorway gantries telling people to slow down or to stop if they feel tired. Even Pope Benedict XVI has contributed to the campaign, telling Italians to drive carefully during the holiday season.
"An Italian feels less of a man without his licence so the thought of it being taken away is proving to be a very good deterrent, much more effective than a fine," adds an ACI spokesman. But he acknowledged that there is a lot of work to do to change the culture of driving in Italy. "Italians like to drive fast and they are not considerate towards other drivers," he says. "Until we change that behaviour we will continue to see these sad places where dear ones have died."
[Modificato da Corcaigh 18/08/2005 14.31]