Reminds me of that day in 1993, when I was in Bologna and had to wait a few hours at the main station. I left the station and wanted to take a walk into the city - but they wouldn't let me pass the zebra crossing. No way! 5 minutes, 10, 20, 30 minutes, impossible to reach the other side of the street without becoming torn apart by at least three cars. Everybody was there! Supposedly every Fiat Uno in the world, buses, taxis, even more Fiat Unos, some Carabinieri... And I think I couldn't hear a single engine - the horns were louder.

Oh well... I still know the Bologna main station from memory - eight hours can be long, but they served an excellent sort of coffee there.

That day I made up my own theory: While many international cars are equipped with a regular horn, Italian cars must have a button only to interrupt their permanent screaming horn for a few seconds.

Last year when I was in Rome, I found out: They still keep to that old tradition... I like people cultivating systematic habits.