Behind the Wheel

I wanted to write to you about something really serious today. For a change.
Driving.
In Italy. A country where drivers become maniacs the minute they put their hands on the wheel.
I include myself in that.
Some things are just genetic, I guess.
Although being American has reformed me somewhat.
Not completely though.
This isn't even funny. At all.
I've known several people who have died on Italy's roads.
A beautiful young Italian woman I knew in my twenties.
And then.
The most horrific.
A beloved cousin of mine, Bianca, and her father, Gigi's cousin Mario.
Mario also immigrated to Washington, D.C. with his family from Naples, like we did, following Gigi, I think. Certainly leaning on him.
Every Saturday when I was growing up, Gigi and I would go to Mario's house in D.C. for lunch -- and I mean EVERY Saturday (the comforting rigid rhythms of Italian life), where Mario's wife, Bebe, would make us all a lovely three-course Italian lunch.
After lunch, I would play with Bianca, just a bit younger than me, and her little sister Sofia, while Gigi and Mario would lie around in their white undershirts talking about Italian soccer. Bebe would clean up and then make coffee.
Bianca and Mario died in a horrific car crash in Vicenza just a few years ago. Bianca was in her 40s and left behind her husband and two young children, one of whom was in the car at the time.
I don't even need to describe to you, I don't think, how life-altering that crash was, for so many people.
The other day, I was driving along Rome's ring road, heading toward my son's place in Rome to pick him up.
Pretty sure I was driving too fast, although turtle-like compared to the dozens of drivers who whizzed past me, often flashing their lights, on the left.
Or the right.
Or whatever lane was free at that moment.
Everyone just zooming along, happily, until suddenly, STOP.
Completely.
Everybody.
Even those of you clocking 150.
It was a wonder a bunch of us didn't crash right then.
Something up ahead in the tunnel was creating the gridlock.
Took awhile to get up there, but then finally, passed two cars slightly bashed in on respective sides, obviously one of them trying to pass the other without seeing. A side-swipe thing.
Bad, but not horrific.
A few Italians standing around the two cars talking.
But then on the right side of the tunnel.
Two cars that had been moved out of the way. Kinda leaning up on their mangled sides.
A bit of smoke coming out of them still.
Two twisted heaps.
Blood around them. Blood going to them.
The emergency vehicles had already come, obviously, to take the people away who were in those cars.
But the cars were still there.
And these other two had just crashed in the past few minutes, it seemed.
Why do Italians drive like complete and utter maniacs?
I offer some tentative reasons.
If you have others, feel free to add to my list.
1) They never believe anything is going to happen to them.
No matter how many times it does happen. To people they love.
Because they are immortal.
Because their culture has survived so long? And remains so pure?
Dunno.
2) They must get there before you, even if it is only a few inches ahead of you. It's a game. They gotta win. This is why they never let you in. Because if they did, you would get there before them. Which cannot be.
3) They've all had too much coffee. An Italian has several cups of strong coffee every day.
4) They like driving fast. It's fun. Italians like having fun. They can make any situation, no matter how dull, fun.
5) They love fast cars. A Ferrari is not an Italian car for nothing.
6) They don't like wearing seatbelts. Seatbelts are confining. Italians do not like to be confined.
Am I forgetting anything?