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ROME - PERSONAL SAFETY

Italy has a reputation for bag snatching and pick-pocketing, but not for mugging which is so common in Britain. If you take sensible precautions, this feels and is a much safer place than London.

Apart from a small number of teenage beggars - to whom you should give a wide berth - the most threatening experience is trying to cross the road. Many crossings have no lights and you are forced to strike out confidently through four lanes of traffic that will continue to weave its way both in front of and behind you. He who hesitates is lost. And if there are lights and they happen to be in your favour, take them with a pinch of salt as motorists will ignore them unless you're actually crossing.

Luckily motorists are very good at stopping. Indeed, they are not only extremely tolerant of pedestrians but of each other. A car I saw cutting across oncoming traffic whilst driving backwards at high speed up a main thoroughfare didn't even elicit a 'toot', let alone a stabbing or monkey-wrench wrapped around the left ear! This would never have been tolerated in Britain where a culture of macho road rage lunacy seems prevalent across age, class and gender.

Rik - 8 June 2001

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