This reminds me of a story on All Things Considered many years ago. It was about traffic in various cities. Reporters went out and recorded their impressions from Roma, Brazil, somewhere in south east Asia and finaly from Cairo. They described the confusion of traffic when you heard a loud "Whump" and the reporter let out a "gasp!" An old man got hit as he crossed and tossed 20 feet forward. When the man hit the ground, bruised but otherwise unhurt a crowd gathered to yell at him for crossing in front of the cars!

I have taken many Americans around Rome and crossing can be treacherous, but Tony da Roma has the right idea, although it seems dangerous and/or silly to Americans. Step into the street, keeping an eye in the direction of the oncoming cars. The trick is to maintain a steady pace, never speeding up, never slowing down, and NEVER stopping. Everyone will adjust to everyone else.I was taught this as a little kid when I walked around Rome with my grandfather, who had to inspect properties all over the city, and in the decades since, I have never had a problem.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tony da Roma:
The best thing to do when crossing at a cross walk is to keep a steady pace. QUOTE]

i have found this to be the surest way to safely cross the street too..
i sometimes have to grip my husband and hold him back from breaking into a run by reminding him NOT to speed up!

My theory is that if you are female (nuns included)and show a little leg, you will make it with ease across any zebra walk in Italy.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amy:
So. Anyone have some useful advice for those who wish to cross the street in Rome-- whether we be nuns, mercedes drivers, or foreigners?

And if you've ever driven or walked in Caracas or Istanbul, Rome streets appear calm, IMHO.

---

Come off it folks. This thread is feeding paranoia - as though being a pedestrain in Rome is being dangerous for all people all of the time.

I don't remember having to do anything special apart from the normal adjustments to another country's ways. (When in Rome ...)

For any big city you can find some people who had a bad pedestrian experience.

I am sorry just getting use to the proceedure of replying/posting ect. I agree totally with Robert, confidence is important, hesitation or confusion is not good. it is like ,at best a beautifully corographed dance or ballet. In what seems like "mayhem" people, pedestrians,drivers, are all very conscious of one another, that is why the traffic really moves ,despite challenging cicumstances. I always remember being introduced to Neapolitan traffic by an elderly lady who lives there, she just confidently walked out into the swirling five "lanes" of traffic, at night! ( my wife and I in tow ) and it was like the Red Sea aparting for the children of israel. On the other hand foolishly "confident", without awareness, trying to demonstrate the same thing, to my visiting daughter ,by stepping in front of a car outside the central station in Naples I nearly gave the driver heart failure as he desperately jammed on the brakes. Act confidently but wisely ,respect the "force" OB1! Also I understand the penalties are very severe for a driver who hits a pedestrian ( no extra points for Nuns or Penguini )PatrickV

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Spano:
I have taken many Americans around Rome and crossing can be treacherous, but Tony da Roma has the right idea, although it seems dangerous and/or silly to Americans. Step into the street, keeping an eye in the direction of the oncoming cars. The trick is to maintain a steady pace, never speeding up, never slowing down, and NEVER stopping. Everyone will adjust to everyone else.I was taught this as a little kid when I walked around Rome with my grandfather, who had to inspect properties all over the city, and in the decades since, I have never had a problem.

---

Well, croosing the road yesterday (Sunday) was no problem at all, as the city centre was completely closed to cars for a whole eight hours. It was absolute bliss.

quote:

---

Originally posted by JohnFromAus:
Come off it folks. This thread is feeding paranoia - as though being a pedestrain in Rome is being dangerous for all people all of the time.

---

John, you can't change people's mind. They will believe what they want to believe.

It is a tragic Anglo Saxon character flaw: Anything that does not conform to our social norms is perceived to be inferior or even "dangerous" and needs to be "corrected". How about that for an outrageous comment?

quote:

---

Originally posted by bubba:

It is a tragic Anglo Saxon character flaw: Anything that does not conform to our social convention is perceived to be inferior or even "dangerous" and needs to be "corrected". How about that for an outragous comment?

---

Anglo Saxon, Anglo Shmaxon! If only those Brits would change their foolish wrong-way driving customs, and stop endangering our existence by making us look the wrong way before crossing the street, many lives would be saved

quote:

---

Originally posted by bubba:
It is a tragic Anglo Saxon character flaw: Anything that does not conform to our social norms is perceived to be inferior or even "dangerous" and needs to be "corrected". How about that for an outrageous comment?

---

Quite good. When I have Italian firned over here I often have to listen to their complaints on the food, the pace of life, the wine etc. all because its a little sifferent from wha thtey are used to back home!

The nerve of htem, who do they think they are? Anglo Saxons???

>>Step into the street, keeping an eye in the direction of the oncoming cars<<

But try not to make eye contact with oncoming drivers...if they sense that you are eyeing them, I think that they feel more confident that you will give way to them. Just keep up the deliberate steady pace as you cross to the other side of the street.

Jim -- It's like getting into one of the tubes of the Lincoln Tunnel from the NJ side. If you acknowledge the presence of the driver to your right by making eye contact, you are not likely to get into NY anytime soon!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jim Zurer:
But try not to make eye contact with oncoming drivers...if they sense that you are eyeing them, I think that they feel more confident that you will give way to them.

---

Not in my experience. On the other hand, if you glare at them with enough wickedness they actually stop for you. You must also be in the middle of the street for them to stop, though!

quote:

---

Originally posted by bubba:
E]John, you can't change people's mind. They will believe what they want to believe.

It is a tragic Anglo Saxon character flaw: Anything that does not conform to our social norms is perceived to be inferior or even "dangerous" and needs to be "corrected". How about that for an outrageous comment?

---

Bubba,
It's good to be outrageous at times, but Dean's posting shows that this is not an exclusively Anglo-Saxon trait.
Actually, it is just part of parochialism, which is something STs are trying to eliminate from themselves.

Perhaps we can help by trying to change what they want to believe.

BTW, I hail from Stanmore, Harrow, in Middle-Saxony.

quote:

---

Originally posted by JohnFromAus:
It's good to be outrageous at times, but Dean's posting shows that this is not an exclusively Anglo-Saxon trait.

---

Which reminds me of that Italian family I met some twelve years ago in Greece. We had found this nice restaurant where every night we plurged for next to nothing with great food. Not just the usual souvlaki, mousaka and gemista, but really delicious dishes: a skewered meat dish with a lovely sauce made of fresh tomato, fresh goats cheese and herbs, a lamb dish with an onion sauce that was wonderfully delicate and so on. And there was this family coming in every night: four people, eating the same stuff every night. They ate spaghetti and salad, salad and spaghetti. And they kept complaining that the food was boring and that the spaghetti were overcooked. Now, Italian and Greek cuisine are not that different: they are based on the same ingredients and there are even dishes that are quite similar (for instance, once we had a lamb with "pastina" that is quite identical to the one made in Puglia), but they kept refusing anything that was not known to them. At the same restaurant used to eat three English sisters. They had each night a different dish, or rather three different dishes, so that one could taste what the other two were eating.

Alice's story reminded me of several French tourists I saw in a rural area in Brazil. They were ordering lunch and wanted wine with their food. It was just not done this way in Brazil and the server told them there was no wine in the restaurant. The French guys started yelling at her in a vicious way that I almost got up. It's true that small-mindedness is not limited to a people. By traveling, I hope to become more open-minded -- yet as you can tell, I am failing miserably!