When NOT in Rome.....
Wow - had to dust off the memory for this one....
Ahem.

1977 - a polyester flared-clad 10 year old Sebulba and his parents were on a trip back to Europe so he could see where the family came from and also meet his rellies.
After being with Dad's side of the family in Hungary, we were travelling to see Mum's side, about halfway down the coast of Croatia (then still in Yugoslavia).

Now, if you have ever driven along the coastal roads & highways of Croatia (built over some years by the Yugoslav Army Engineers) you are in for a treat. Its good quality road up hundreds of feet in places, and the Adriatic views are spectacular. But you will also be made acutely aware of how crap the drivers are.

Y'see in them days, all you needed was enough money to buy a car and you got the license automatically. Logical enough.... apparently. Well, they were Communist at that stage, and the idea is no dafter than Centralised Economic Planning or the concept of Socialist Realism.
Driving schools were non-existent and much needed!

Due to the above:
1/ there was not one piece of un-dented Armco barrier anywhere in the country,
2/ wrecks were often left wrapped around the Armco or at the side of the road - which in places was 500 or more feet below - because it was too difficult to extract or remove them,
3/ shrines of crosses and flowers marked the sites were people had come to grief; in fact so many flowers in places that it looked like a florist had set up there (Special Mention here of the stone memorial to the two army drivers killed when one flicked a lit cigarette out the window which caused their petrol tanker to explode.....),
4/ accidents caused delays of hours and tailbacks for miles.

And it is in this situation that the Sebulba family find themselves. A plume of black smoke twisting upwards ahead in the distance indicated another accident out of view. Traffic was at a standstill as far as the corners of the road would let you see. The early afternoon summer sun was beating down relentlessly.

And behind us tooting his horn with equal relentlessness was an Italian dude in a Bambina with wife & 2 kids. Through the rear window we could see them arguing and him tooting, and more arguing followed by tooting, coupled with arguing and determined tooting.
Repeat indefintely.....
What may have worked in Rome traffic had no effect in Yugoslavia that day. The traffic wouldn't - couldn't - move.

After about an hour of this insanity, the people in the car in front had had enough of the racket - as had all of us within earshot.
They got out and walked past our car and stopped at the Bambina.
One reached though the sunroof and pulled out the Italian, who was mid-argument, whilst the other delivered two quick punches to his somewhat perplexed face.
Whereupon he was dropped back into the car - bleeding, dazed, and confused, but totally aware that he was to STFU from then on.
Indeed, the horn remained in an un-tooted state for the remainder of our enforced stop.

Length - 2 hours to clear the road, then 20 minutes driving until we came upon the next accident...
(Sebulba continues to fight evil with evil....., Wed 23 Dec 2009, 16:31, 1 reply)

haha
any story with an italian getting punched is good enough for me (okay , sorry a tad racist, i assume not ALL Italians are smug cunts who keep swapping sides in the war).

--

Incidentally , i remember seeing similar car/bus wrecks when i travelled across India in an extremely dangerous bus. Just metal shells lying discarded and wrecked at the sides of the road in various states of damage...
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Thu 24 Dec 2009, 1:35, closed)