Driving in Italy. Thinking of renting a car? 12 tips!

thinking of driving here in Italy this is the right video via [Music] jothee Gamal David may be new to some Jochen Ali everyone David here welcome to my channel and on this channel I give practical tips for everything Italy for today's video I thought what better place to do it than in my car I've been driving here in Rome for about a year and I would like to share with you my tips recommendations and just the basics of driving here in Italy if you are here on vacation and you choose to to drive

around as opposed to taking public transportation before we continue let me just say that if you have in fact chosen to to drive in this country you made a very courageous choice all right so let's start with the basics probably the biggest question that a lot of people ask is what side of the road do they drive on here in Italy if you're from North America and a lot of other countries then don't worry the cars here are exactly the same though steering wheel is on the left-hand side and we driv

e on the right side of the road also please be aware that the cars here are much smaller than in North America for example my car's a Volkswagen up now there are also a lot of smart cards here which where I'm from doesn't really make a lot of sense but when you're driving here in a city it does come in handy because the spaces are much tighter [Music] all right so in regards to the rules and the signs there are some similarities and there are some differences let's first talk about the similarit

ies the biggest one I would say would be the stop sign so when you when you approach a stop sign you stop the other important thing to remember is that you must always give precedence to the person who's coming to the right of use so if you arrive at an intersection and you're not sure whether you should go or stop if you see a car arriving at the same time that is to the right of you then you need to let that person go this is what it's supposed to happen here in Italy reality could be somethin

g different there are three differences that come to mind and the first one is not so much a difference but more in the way that it is presented and this is the yield sign now it's the same as the United States it comes in a triangular form and also you will see this on the ground so you'll see some little triangles at the ground and this means that you need to yield and give precedence to the oncoming traffic which i think is kind of nice actually the next one is that here in Italy you cannot t

urn on red I know in the United States you can but here you cannot this next one is particular to Rome although I suspect that you can find it in other Italian cities but these are zones which are called ztl zona dr. guma doddle in quite simply that means you cannot enter this zone especially when you see the sign vodka Webb Tebow if you see that that means you simply can't enter and if you do there will be a camera that will take a picture of your license plate and you will pay a fine however i

f it says vodka not a Tebow that means you can go in there but even still I would check the signs very carefully to see if if your vehicle is authorized to go in this area this next one is something which i think is more of a European thing but an American thing but this is the blue arrow and I find it very helpful and what it does is it simply indicates the flow of traffic so if you're approaching a road and there's only one there's only one way you can go maybe like a one-way street then the a

rrow tells you the flow of traffic unfortunately signs are not always visible sometimes they're off on the side of the road way off on the side of the road and the writing can be that small sometimes so you really got to pay attention okay now let's talk about the toll booths and in a time these are called pay dodgy now just be aware that if you are planning on traveling this country via car and you want to use the main highways then there are going to be tall boots and these can be a little bit

expensive to get an idea of how much you're gonna spend if you go in the description below I've posted a link if you click on that then you can calculate how much exactly you're gonna spend the drive legally here in Italy you are going to need an international driving permit and the best thing to do is to go to if you're in North America is to go to a triple-a office and ask them for that they'll ask to see your your regular driver's license you pay them 20 something bucks they take your pictur

e and then after that you have an international driving permit which will allow you to drive basically anywhere in the world I've done this numerous times before it works pretty well now I'm not sure if a rental company is going to want to see this permit however what I can tell you is that if you are stopped by the police then they will want to see this document so make sure you get it well I think this is the same anywhere but there is a big difference between driving in a city and driving in

the countryside so if you're coming here and you just mainly want to see the cities then I don't think getting a car is really a good idea however if you are going to venture out in the countryside then this might be a good idea because very often in smaller towns public transportation doesn't exist or is just very scarce alright now let's talk about the pros and cons of renting a car here in Italy remember this video is intended for people who are coming here on vacation era considering renting

a car well the biggest Pro I would say is that you are autonomous you've got the freedom to come and go as you please you can go and explore places and so for me this is a big plus a car is also great and necessary if you do plan on going to little villages here in this country so for example if you want to go to my wife's town which is PFF at SIA which is in the heart of Sicily you are going to need a car because I would not rely on public transportation if it even exists also driving in a dif

ferent country is a great cultural experience I mean when you drive here and when you go back home you know you've you've got the potential to tell tons of stories you know good and bad about my driving here in Italy if you happen to survive now for the negatives and yeah there are some things that that I want to mention but before I do just be aware that what I'm to say is just based on my own experience driving here in Italy mainly Rome and also in New England in the United States so this is j

ust my own experience I would say that Italian drivers are more aggressive they're not so much reckless although you certainly have some exceptions here but the Italians can be much more proactive in their driving so to speak as opposed to driving in North America granted again this is just based up from what I've seen but I think they're more aggressive also to other things that you should be aware of is that the Italians often don't respect the the lines in the road so that they might drift fr

om one lane to the other and quite often they don't respect the rules so you really got to keep a sharp eye out when you drive here on the plus side though it does keep your senses sharp they also love washing their horns here you know every day it's like hearing the opening notes to the William Tell Overture [Music] [Music] there's also parking so if you are driving in a big city in particular Rome and then just be aware that parking can be very hard to find if not impossible and when you do fi

nd a spot it's very important to know how to parallel park I mean where I'm from it's not very necessary so if you can't do it you might be a bit disadvantaged here [Music] it's costly you know if you if you do decide to rent a car here then you are gonna have to deal with the cost of the rental gas the tow boats that I mentioned parking as well and also if you do happen to go into an area where you can't go then you do risk getting a fine so that could also be an extra cost like in any big city

car theft is also a risk so lock it up if you are driving in the Italian highways then just be aware that they do have speed cameras and this is called Altuve looks before you approach one there are signs that indicate that they're coming up and it's usually like a little sign with a with a police cartoon figures so be careful if you are caught speeding then what happens is the machine will take a picture of your license plate and that information gets sent back to your rental car company and t

hen they will bill you driving in Italy tips so this these are my recommendations the biggest one first and foremost I would say is pay attention I can't stress that enough really this is the country where you've really got to watch what's going on around you because if you're distracted for one second then something bad could happen hopefully not tip from a local if you are planning on driving here in Italy and you want to go somewhere specifically especially in an urban setting what I would do

is I would plan your journey out very carefully go to Google Maps find out exactly where it is and then kind of look at the map step by step especially if you see the way you got a turn somewhere I would actually look at the map and maybe even go a go street level and actually see exactly where you've got to turn I mean I've done this numerous times before in the past and when I have a general idea of where I'm going it makes things a lot easier because very often it's easy to get lost here as

I said before the signs are not always very clear you can't see them the writing is that small you know if you veer off to too much to the right then you're not the correct lane to turn where you've got to go and pulling over and even turning around here is not as easy as it isn't in North America so the more prepared you are the more you have an idea of the rule that you need to take you're gonna be a lot better off believe me also be prepared for tighter driving in a sense that you know the ro

ads are smaller here everything is a little bit more compact so you know if somebody passes to the right of you and there's only like you know this much space between you and the other car it happens here it's perfectly normal again I'm only speaking from my experience here and role but I think this could apply to other you know scenarios here in Italy and one thing that I don't like but which does happen here is you get people who follow you very close another numbers they tailgates you you kno

w I don't like it either but I think some people do it not you know maliciously but it's just what they're used to it's it's just you know like I said before everything is closer and tighter learn to parallel park my final recommendation is this don't drive here no what I mean is this if you're coming here for the first time and you just want to see the major cities raw Venice Florence Naples Milan I wouldn't even bother getting a car you can easily go from one city to the other by train also th

e traffic in Rome is horrendous so if you're not used to city driving then you know getting a car here could be I don't know a particular cultural experience particularly could be negative or positive it depends on you the expression for this week I have a couple goodies for you let's start with a little bull cab you Larry if you get a car here then you are going to need gas petrol in the UK and the words for that are well there's a few of them the main one is been Xena sounds like benzene but t

hat you know they mean gas the other one could be cata Butantan the first time I heard that I was confused I thought I was like a carburetor but no it means the same thing is yes if you are getting a diesel car then you're gonna need gas all yo which looks like gas in American English so that that's another confusing word but these are the words that you should know if you need gas here on that note I actually prefer getting gas here in Italy because right often it's full Serbs so you pull up un

til the guy what you want and he does the gas for you if you want to get yes if you want to fill it up then you simply say me find piano fill her up [Music] so it's pretty cool you know you go up to the pump you go to the machine you put the money in you indicate the pump that you want and you do it yourself I think it's pretty cool so I really hope this video was helpful for you today I've tried my best to give you my experience I'm driving here and I hope I've helped you to make a decision whe

ther you want to rent a car here in Italy or not if you found today's video useful make sure you give me a thumbs up that'd be cool and also if you haven't already make sure you subscribe to my channel for more David's doses of Italy and also hit the bell next to the subscription button so you'll be notified of when I make my future videos if you have any driving stories that you want to share with me or if something wasn't clear in the video make sure you leave me comment below [Music] you