Although difficult for the "Italian-Impaired" (and mine was nearly 50 years out of practice), on our last auto visit to Florence (first to the hotel, in a most restricted zone, the Piazza del Duomo then to turn in the car), I found the traffic police, as they had been long ago, the most "negotiable" of guardians of public safety. Even my clumsy, faltering attempts to explain my wife's disability sufficed for an escorted entry into No Man's Land to drop off her and the bags.

While most Italians view all regulations as trivial barriers to be transgressed, the Italian police (many? most?) seem to hold the perspective that the rules can be circumvented. More status-conscious, the police of Rome are less willing to be hornswoggled.