Driving in Italy: What every Motorist Needs to Know when Touring Italy by Car
When driving in Italy for your holidays, get to know the road rules, speed limits and restrictions before you travel. First of all, I want to say that you have to be alert on the Italian roads. Some roads are extremely narrow, especially in remote areas, and are driven very badly by the locals who are not adverse to swinging around corners half-way across your path on a corner, or having a huge pantechnicon truck doing the same as they take short cuts through country roads.
And never take your car into Italian villages and towns. Rather park outside the walls of the town or village because you will have great difficulty driving a car around those narrow town lanes that Italians do quite skilfully with their small cars. Your rental will no doubt be twice that size and impossible to get around such tight spaces.
Finally, many roads in the mountainous areas do not have sufficient safety measures, and there can often be nothing but a small bush between you and the deep ravine next to you with no safety barriers in sight. This all makes for some heart-stopping driving in places and can take the edge off the pleasures of driving around Italy if you are not alert at all times.
Driving in Italy with an EU Driver's Licence
If you have an EU Driving Licence you may drive in Italy with no problem. You will be told that to drive in Italy you need a valid International Licence. However, we have now been traveling to Italy backwards and forwards for the last 10 years now, and we have never applied for an International Licence and you will not be asked for one when you rent a car in Italy.
As long as you have a valid and clean licence from your country of origin, it should be accepted. However, it is always best to make sure of this with your car rental company before you travel.
To get an International Driving Licence you can apply for one through your local Automobile Association. Once you have this, you can travel around Italy for up to a year with this licence. After that, you will have to apply for an Italian driving licence.
Driving in Italy: Road Rules
I know at times you will think that there aren't any road rules in Italy by the way some people drive, but there are.
One thing that is mandatory when driving in Italy, is that if you change direction at any time when you are driving, you have to use your indicators to do so. This includes overtaking, turning or even stopping. If you have broken down, you must take out the red triangle and place it at a safe distance from your car. Carrying a red triangle is compulsory.
Of course the most important point of all is that in Italy people drive on the right hand side of the road. As a result, when you come to a 4-way stop, you give way to people coming from the right.
Many roundabouts and intersections have directional arrows for you to follow. Make sure that you do, because if you don't, you will incur the anger of your fellow drivers. And Italian drivers are not shy in letting you know just how annoyed they are with you.
One
situation where you
don't give way to traffic from the
right is when you see this sign
This is when you
usually have heavy
traffic coming onto the
road from your left, and you no longer have
priority.
This condition will continue until you see the same sign, but this time with black lines through the sign. This now means that you can revert back to giving way to traffic from the right.
When driving in Italy with children make sure that they are buckled up at all times. Children under four cannot travel in the car at all unless they are strapped into a car seat. Children between four and 12 cannot travel in the front unless using a suitable restraint system. And by suitable this doesn't mean a seat belt at the age of 4, as this is not a suitable retraining device at that age. Renting car seats from car rental companies is possible.
Not only do children have to buckle up, but all your passengers do too. Seat belts are compulsory for front and rear-seat passengers.
Using your horn to avoid an accident is acceptable, but using your horn in a built-up area is not. In fact it is officially banned.
If you are driving in Italy and decide to have a couple of glasses of wine or beer for lunch, or stop off at some wine estates for some wine tasting take care. Despite Italy being a wine producing country, they are stricter than most countries regarding blood/alcohol levels. In Italy you are only allowed to have 0.5 milligrams of alcohol per 1 milliliter of blood, so take care.
Driving in Italy: Speed Limits
There are built-in speed cameras on many of the national roads, both on the freeways and on town roads. To know what they look like, they are grey in colour and look like a metal pillar, some are about 10 inches wide, others can be wider, and about 3 and a half feet tall.
However, in Italy you can also find mobile speed cameras as well, and the fines for speeding are stiff. Most of the time you won't even know that you have a fine until you get home and the car rental company contacts you. Or worse still, you will get a hefty on-the-spot fine, which could eat into your holiday budget. The traffic police are highly visible and often do spot checks on cars, so take care.
The speed limits for driving in Italy are as follows:
- On the autostradas it is 130 km per hour when dry, 110 km per hour when wet
- On four lane highways it is 110 km per hour when dry, 90 km per hour when wet
- On normal roads it is 90 km per hour when dry, 80 km per hour when wet
- In built up areas it is 50 km per hour wet or dry.
When traveling on the autostrada, kept to the right and pass on the left. Get back into your lane using your indicator and do not stay out in the left hand lane if you are not going the speed of the traffic. If you do you will get smartly flashed out of the way by some irate Italian who will tailgate you until you move over. It is also compulsory to drive with your lights on when traveling on the autostrada during the day.
When you are traveling on the autostrada be aware of some of the signs in Italian that you will need to know the meaning of:
- Uscita means Exit
- Entrata means Entrance
- Tangenziale means an Orbital Road
Driving in Italy: The Gas Stations
Don't get caught without any gas when you are touring Italy, and it can easily happen if you don't know when they open.
Gas stations in the main are open from 7:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 3:30p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Most stations are closed on Sundays. Where you will find 24 hour stations is along the autostrada.
When they are open they are often self-service. All grades of unleaded petrol (benzina), diesel (gasolio) and LPG are available as well as lead substitute additive. Leaded no longer exists. Credit and debit cards are widely accepted, although they probably won't work at automatic pumps, which are often the only pumps open out-of-hours and at lunch-time (from noon to 3pm) away from the Autostrada.
Driving in Italy: The Toll Roads
The roads in Italy aren't too bad, and the toll system allows you to get from A to B more directly. However, you need to make sure that you have euro coins and small notes on you so that you can pay for these roads.
Each toll is different and you can never be sure what will happen, unless you have traveled through these tolls several times and you get to know how they work. Depending on which toll you use, there are 3 different scenarios. Sometimes you just have to collect a ticket at the toll and you pay when you exit, submitting your ticket to get the fee. Sometimes the toll road is free, depending on the time you go through the toll. Other times it is a set fee and you pay as you enter the toll and don't need a ticket.
When you come to a toll entrance you will see a toll plaza with one or more drive-in gates. Always go to a gate marked Biglietto (ticket) or drive to an unmarked gate. Do not enter gates marked only Viacard or Telepass. Take a card from the automated machine at the entry gate.
After you pass through the toll plaza you will see signs directing you to the possible destinations for the autostrada. Always know which larger city you are heading towards, and know the city names in Italian (e.g. Milano for Milan or Firenze for Florence).
Driving in Italy: Parking Woes
Parking in towns and cities around Italy can be a nightmare if you don't have the right paperwork and are not aware of the zoning system.
In blue zones, a parking disk, obtained at tourist offices, ACI offices or gas stations must be displayed on the dashboard. Parking in this zone is limited to one hour.
There is also metered street parking. In these areas, you will see a large sign with the letter "P." Look for a coin box where you will deposit enough coins to pay for the length of time you wish to stay. The machine will dispense a ticket showing the time of day that you must vacate the parking space. Display this ticket on the dashboard of the car.
Conclusion
When it is all said and done, despite the bad driving at times, Italians are courteous on the roads, they are fairly disciplined and will indicate and give way when required, which is a lot different to Middle Eastern roads where I have lived where you hope that your life insurance can be cashed in on the other side if needed!
Driving in Italy as in independent traveler away from organized tours allows you to stop and explore the country at your leisure. You can visit off-the-beaten-track sites and see far more than you would if you went on a whistle-stop tour that allows you to see the main towns but also feeds you into tourist traps and little leeway to explore on your own.
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Regions of Italy
Click on any of the pictures below to take you to the three main regions of Italy.Here you will be able to see travel information for each region as well as travel reviews. Don't forget to add your own reviews!
