Italian Freeway Puzzles - Part 1
Trip Start
Apr 17, 2002
1
6
31
Trip End
May 21, 2002
Ancona,
Marche,
Italy
Saturday, April 20, 2002
For the first time during our trip we encountered unmanned tollgates that, as we were to realise later, are the most common type in Western Europe. As we approached the gate we noticed that there was nobody in the booth and the boom gate had no intention to open whatsoever. Naturally cars started banking up behind us and we had to do something. I got out of the car and started pressing all the buttons available at the gate. Pressing the green one should have resulted in a ticket being issued by the machine. Then you would pick up the ticket and the boom gate would open. Either the ticket didn't come out or I didn't notice it in the dark not really knowing where to look for it. Eventually, as a result of me pressing the red button, a voice sounded on the PA system. The trouble was, the voice spoke Italian to which I expressed my distress in English. The voice said OK and the boom gate opened. We were on an Italian freeway!
Satisfaction from the job well done was short lived as after an hour or so the freeway came to a standstill. The drivers stopped their engines, switched off the lights and some probably went to sleep, as it was about midnight. We even noticed people getting out of their vehicles and walking their dogs among the cars.
It is interesting to note that there are a large number of trucks and semi- trailers (known in Europe as TIRs) on all major European freeways which makes driving not as pleasant as between, say, Melbourne and Adelaide. When we stopped, the entire right hand side lane (the slow lane) was packed with those trucks while the other lane was taken exclusively by passenger cars. Unlike in Australia, trucks and slow vehicles stick to slow lanes.
Half an hour later, the freeway moved and we had about ... 5 minutes of free drive until we had to stop again. This happened a few more times, all up lasting 4 hours! It turned out that there were some road works in progress that were blocking both lanes and only from time to time the traffic was allowed through. In a true Italian style there were no prior warnings or information so drivers had no chance of escaping the jam.
At 2am we reached an exit just past Ancona where we were expected to pay for the use of the freeway.
Somehow we managed to convey to the guy in the booth that we did not have the ticket and we gave him the name of the place in which we entered the freeway. He charged us an appropriate fee and after a few minutes of typing (to the dismay of a semi-trailer's driver stuck behind us) presented us with an A4 sheet of paper mumbling something about Ancona Nord. We drove away and had a look at the sheet. It became obvious that it was a fine for using the freeway without a ticket. And it was nearly Euro 50.
