Fiat 500 not suitable for new Italian drivers. Land Rovers OK…
May 8th, 2008According to a report in La Republica today, a new law which is set to come into force next July will prevent newly qualified Italian drivers from taking the wheel in “high powered vehicles”.
“Sounds perfectly reasonable” I hear you cry. That may be so, however those behind the legislation decided to use that measure of performance muched bragged about by Abarth owners over history of BHP/tonne. In this case the performance limit is due to be set at 67 bhp/tonne. This figure, which was presumably arrived at after much careful consideration, means high powered tarmac munching speed machines such as the Fiat 500, Toyota Aygo and MINI One will be off limits for the first year of driving for newly qualified Italian drivers. Perversely, a Land Rover Discovery or Nissan Patrol could still be considered perfectly acceptable transport for novice motorists.
Apparently this isn’t the only drawback of the new legislation, one of the other potential pitfalls being that the kW/Tonne of each vehicle on the roads is not something readily available to Italian traffic police, so quite how this will be enforced is anyone’s guess.
Thanks once again to KevinB for the heads up on this story.
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