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ROME - A gruesome spate of deadly road accidents over the European may finally destroy the Italians' belief that their agility at the wheel compensates for a cavalier attitude to safety and their reactions are not dulled by drink.
In the country with world's second highest density of car ownership, traffic accidents are depressingly common on roads clogged with irascible drivers who disdain traffic rules, park anarchically and treat pedestrians like moving targets.
But reports of toddlers and teenagers mown down by drunk drivers - and not least the president's wife who was knocked over on a pedestrian crossing outside the palace - have prompted Italian politicians to react.
Prime Minister Romano Prodi, unusual for preferring bicycles even though the red Ferrari is the ultimate Italian status symbol, called for a "major moral and civic shake-up" regarding Italy's diabolical driving habits.
The influential Catholic Church decries "collective madness" on the roads and Pope Benedict has issued "10 Commandments" for motorists, saying cars "tend to bring out the 'primitive' side of human beings".
That certainly seems to be the case in Rome, where the heirs to the cradle of European civilisation turn surprisingly aggressive behind the wheels of their pint-sized city cars, or mounted on the buzzing mopeds that swarm the streets.
"If you scratch my paintwork, I'll kill you," a burly truck driver shouts at a mother trying to manoeuvre a pushchair round his vehicle, which is occupying the width of the pavement.
On the busy Via Salaria, a blind woman trying to negotiate a pedestrian crossing blocked by cars parked three abreast vents her frustration by beating them with her white stick.
Pavements provide scant refuge, with cars parking on them and zooming mopeds using them as short-cuts. Zebra crossings at traffic lights serve as starting grids for impatiently revving scooters and motorbikes.
"In nearly 60 years of life I've never seen a driver fined for not respecting the lines," wrote Il Manifesto newspaper's Marco d'Eramo in a column. "Once, hit by a car on a crossing, I was told off by a policeman who said 'you should be more careful'."
D'Eramo said the Italian capital boasts 2.4 million cars for 2.5 million inhabitants - and 8.47 pedestrians killed or hurt per 1,000 people versus 0.85 in London or 0.4 in Paris.
The lawless roads
Applying make-up or talking by mobile phone while driving is routine. An 82-year-old Sicilian distracted by a call drove onto a beach last month, hurting children and a pregnant woman.
Lobby groups like "Safe Children" lament that only one in five Italians wears a seat belt, while children often sit in the back or front with no belt, let alone a car seat, and sometimes on the lap of an adult at the wheel.
This adds up to 8,000 deaths a year in road accidents plus 170,000 people put in hospital and 600,000 needing first aid, according to health ministry estimates. Comparing Italy's record with the European Union is hampered by poor data but the EU has demanded member nations halve the number of accidents by 2010.
That will be difficult in a place where the death-defying disdain for things like speed limits prompts Rome police to keep two Lamborghini Gallardo "supercars" for high-speed chases.
But faced with public outcry, and incidents like attempts to lynch a Mercedes driver who knocked over a couple on a moped in Rome, killing one of them, ministers are vying with each other to propose draconian additions to a draft law on road safety.
Suggestions include raising the charge for drunk drivers who kill to murder from manslaughter, confiscating their vehicles, banning alcohol at motorway cafes and warning against the dangers of drink-driving on the labels of liquor bottles.
"This is a national emergency," said Transport Minister Alessandro Bianchi, demanding "more severe punishments and obligatory arrest".
Murderous city
The bill awaiting Senate approval will ban under-fives from riding pillion on mopeds, now a common sight, reduce the speed limit for young drivers and crack down on those using phones, doing U-turns on motorways or ignoring one-way signs.
But experts doubt new paperwork in itself will help unless laws are applied more rigorously by more visible police patrols.
They also fear interest may flag after the annual season for carnage in summer, when holidaying inebriated teenagers leaving nightclubs become victims and perpetrators.
"Road safety is not a summer problem nor just about the Saturday night carnage," said the Italian Automobile Club. "People driving on Italian roads must have the certainty that if they break the rules, they will be stopped and punished."
While praising a police campaign to double the number of alcohol tests on drivers to a million in 2007, ACI said Italy will remain woefully behind France which carried out 8 million such tests on its roads last year.
Meanwhile, wilting bunches of flowers continue to appear on street corners hit by tragedy, sometimes accompanied by a note like the one in southern Rome which read: "Thank you, Rome, for the murderous city you have become."
- REUTERS
