Mi hai rotto i coglioni!

The other day my wife was driving us to work. She is practicing driving a car in Italy since she got her driving experience in Finland and as you can imagine those civilized rules don't apply to Italy.

For example, there they don't teach you about the nanosecond rule - if you are stopped in a red light and take more than 1 nanosecond to start moving the vehicles behind you have the right show you their discontent by using the horns and shouting obscene names to you mother.

That given day she was driving the car following the zone speed limit of 70Km/h, which is quite a good speed for the type of road we were on. Suddently a crazy Ford Focus passes us with the driver blasting the horn and making quite rude gestures. He was making us understand that we were going to slow for his taste. After some seconds of it I lost it! I started gesturing the guy back to make him understand that he was not good of his mind.

He starts braking to slow us down, but since we weren't in a hurry - unlike him! - we slowed down too. In the mean time he continues gesticulating like a mad man and I continue my vain effort to make him understand that he was still not good of his mind.

Suddently, as if he finally understood what I was trying to communicate, he stops his car and opens the door (see the photo above!). (I want to call attention that if by any chance you started reading in the middle of the story, that this is happening in the middle of a busy road where cars travel at least 70Km/h). He then goes to my window and shouts "MI HAI ROTTO I COGLIONI! NON DOVETE ANDARE PIANO SU LA STRADA!", which means "YOU HAVE BROKEN MY BALLS! YOU SHOULDN'T DRIVE SLOW ON THE ROAD!".

The irony mirrored in the actions of this intelligent man! He was mad at us because we were driving only at the speed limit. He then spent some good minutes driving slowly to make us understand that we should drive faster. The climax of the irony comes when we takes time of his precious schedule to stop the car in the middle of the road and comes to chat with us.

Did he realize that with the time he lost in these nonsense activity he could have arrived to his destination driving at 70Km/h without having to break the law several times - passing in a continuous line, breaking the speed limit and stopping this car in the middle of the road?

How fast can the police drive?

Sant'Agata Bolognese is the home of Lamborghini. It's a small country town about 30 minutes from Bologna, and quite close from where I currently work.

History tells that Ferrucio Lamborghini, a wealthy tractor manufacturer that confronted Enzo Ferrari with some complaints about one of his automobiles. Enzo dismissed his complaint with "What does a tractor maker know about cars?". A year later Ferrucio founded his car company.

Quite frequently I pass by (they pass by me) Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Maseratis, since all these manufacturers are headquartered around Bologna. I regularly see a blue and white Lamborghini belonging to the Italian police, the other day he speed my me but I was fast enough to take a photo of it. It seems that the Lamborghini Polizia rotates around several cities, but regularly goes to Sant'Agata for maintenance.