Got pulled over by the Italian Police, They checked everything Options

[DonTraver]

Left Torino and headed for Genova. About a hour into the drive I get pulled over by the Italian Police. They wanted all the paperwork for me and the RS America. Passport, drivers licience, insurance, California Pink Slip, registration, shipping documents, you name it. Luckily I had it all and it was all valid.

I was going about 10kph under the speed limit following a couple of other cars.

They spent about 45 minutes going through it all, calls on their cell phones, etc. Finally let me go. When they were done, they just gave me all my paperwork, turned around and left. I think they were disappointed.

I don't trust cops. I grew up in a family of cops, I know how crooked they can be. My dad called it the John Wayne Syndrome. Give them a badge and a gun and they think they're John Wayne. Looks like it's the same over here.

Oh yeah, just found this out, before you can use the internet in Italy, you have to register your passport numbers. I'd been wondering why I had to turn in my passport at each hotel. This is the only country that I've had to do that in.

Oh well, I'm having fun in Genova now.

Later, Don

[Scott S]

I had kind of the opposite experience in Italy. I was lucky enough to spend some time in Val Gardena early in my ski industry days ("testing" 215 and 223 downhill boards - ha!). We went "big" one night and literally trashed our rental car, bombing it into snow drifts (even some rail road tracks if I remember correctly). We packed the engine compartment so completely full of snow that it would no longer run. So we left it where it died - all dented up and in a snow drift by the train station, and stumbled about 2 miles back to our hotel. We spent 2 more days on the hill and flew home. No one ever heard a word about it or saw any sort of charge on a credit card or anything.

Yup, ugly Americans for sure (IMG:style_emoticons/default/flag.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/drunk.gif) . Sorry about that - but it was 20 years ago...... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/shades.gif)