Thirteen Years In, I Finally Bought a Scooter

After thirteen years in Italy, I finally did it. I bought myself a scooter. Nothing wild, just a 125cc in white. A Piaggio Liberty, for anyone who wants the specifics. Sleek little thing, rides like a sofa. And then, almost instantly, I got introduced to a whole different side of Italy: the road, and the exact reason “road rage” now has its own Italian translation. Rabbia stradale.

Italy, by the way, is the country with the most scooter manufacturers in the world. Everyone knows the red Vespa, basically a walking Italian cliché at this point, or the olive-green Lambretta. Dolce vita on two wheels. Plenty of Italians still ride scooters, but plenty more have a car. A big car. Basically a tank on four wheels, since SUVs have made their way in here too. I’ll go ahead and claim that a lot of people are compensating for something, because otherwise I genuinely can’t explain this phenomenon across all of Europe. It really is a bit of a shame that people would rather climb into a car than hop on a scooter on a beautifully sunny day, especially one that uses less gas than those rolling pig troughs on wheels. And takes up less space. With a guaranteed parking spot, no less.

So today I took the scooter out, needed to sign something at a government office. I hadn’t even been riding fifteen minutes before my first road rage moment. A massive roundabout, three lanes. I was in the middle one, getting ready to move right for my exit. That’s when an SUV driver behind me leaned on the horn. Why? No idea. Nobody to my left, nobody to my right. What on earth did this guy want on my lane? Unfortunately, I still haven’t learned how to take a hand off the handlebars and flip someone off while riding.

Less than two minutes later, I broke the unwritten Codice Stradale again. Apparently, and this is entirely my own theory, as a scooter rider you’re supposed to squeeze past the entire line of cars at a red light, from the right or the left, whichever works, all the way to the front. Just so the whole line of cars can then overtake you all over again once the light turns green. I, with my German driver’s license, simply stayed put behind the car in front of me, in the right lane. Which, apparently, blocked the unofficial “overtaking lane.” A cyclist, clearly in a hurry to run the red light, screamed at me for it. I think he had to slam on his brakes pretty hard, because I was just sitting right there in his way. For a second, I could already see it: rear-ended by a bicycle. Good thing the light turned green before things escalated, or I might have finally practiced that middle finger after all. Rude hand gestures, it turns out, are considered perfectly acceptable manners around here. And honestly, I am trying my best to integrate.

Once I got to the office, I found out I could’ve saved myself the trip and the gas entirely. Turns out I could’ve just signed the thing digitally. Somebody really should have mentioned that beforehand. And sometimes, it turns out, things really aren’t all that different from back home in Germany.

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This post was previously published on Notes from the Anthropocene.

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