August is still a long way away, but I like to plan ahead. My family will be visiting Italy towards the end of August. We arrive in Bologna on a Friday afternoon around 1:00 and plan to spend the weekend in Florence. I've surmised that the best way to get to Florence is to take a cab from the airport to the train station, then the fast train to Florence.

I've read that August is one of the few times of the year when trains can sell out, so what's the best strategy for dealing with train tickets? If I buy them in advance and there's a flight delay, that would be costly. But it also wouldn't be good to arrive at the train station at 2:00 only to have to wait until 7:00 or 8:00 for the next train.

I'm thinking we might just take the direct bus ("Appennino") from Bologna airport to Florence, although a number of people have grumbled about it online - breakdowns, seatbelts missing, unsafe driving, buses not marked properly, etc. So you see why I'd prefer to take the train, unless we're going to have to wait hours to get one!

Don't overthink it. It's a half hour train ride, and the trains run every 15-30 minutes. Don't worry about the trains selling out. You can buy a ticket 5-6 months in advance, and have an assigned seat. That is always a bit of a risk if your plane is late, and has nothing to do with the month of August.

August is not a month when the trains sell out. The 15th is the national holiday Ferragosto, with a lot of people traveling on the 14th and 15th. Those are the only two problem dates. In fact, after August 15th, the trains will be practically empty.

You could take the bus. The grumbling doesn't matter. No buses, anywhere, have seat belts, not even school buses in the USA. People are just projecting from their nervousness about being in a foreign country. Buses in Italy are not known for being dangerous.

Do whatever is most convenient and appealing to you. If you are traveling on the 14th or 15th, then that would make a difference.

That's reassuring, thanks!

I'm in the minority in this forum as a frequent traveler to Italy who happens to purchase train tickets in advance just about all of the time. That said, for the short segment, you're probably going to be fine. If you really wanted to, you could buy ahead on a fare that lets you change trains in case you're running early or late. That's what I normally do. It's overkill, but honestly when I'm coming off of an overnight flight, the last thing I want to do is wait any longer for a transfer than I need to, so I do it for peace of mind.

According to Wikipedia seat belts in buses have been compulsory in Italy since 2006, even though the article states that enforcement is low.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt_legislation

Your claim that "no buses, anywhere, have seat belts" is patently wrong. Germany has had this as a legal demand since 1999. In Norway, individual bus passengers get fined if there is a police check, and they are found without wearing a seat belt. The legislation is for all of Europe (EEA). There is an exemption for city buses with standing places, travelling at lower speeds, but European standard is for long distance buses to have seat belts.

I would be very wary of using a long distance bus travelling om motorways (as between Bologna and Firenze) with the bus not having seat belts. Not because bus travel in Italy is unsafe, but because a company having buses not compliant with current legislation for road worthiness in this aspect cannot be trusted to have complied with other safety legislation either.

You are right, my statement was too broad. I was thinking about city buses. It's unusual to even find a seat on an Italian bus, much less a seat belt. It always seems that more than half of the people are standing. It's the same everywhere. Buses tend to remain in use for decades, and cannot be retrofitted with seat belts.

There was just a tragedy in Tennessee where a maniac school bus driver deliberately crashed the bus, killing six children. This resulted in a discussion in the media about why school buses don't have mandatory seat belts. The consensus was that the risk is so low that it would be more cost-effective to spend the money on other measures to enhance child safety.

School buses in the USA are estimated to travel some 10 billion miles per year. Almost all of the 160 or so school bus related fatalities that happen each year involve a child walking to school, riding a bike to school, or sitting in a car being driven to school that a school bus crashed into or ran over. An average of six children are killed per year while riding inside of a school bus. It is estimated that installing seat belts would reduce the number of fatalities of children actually riding inside the school bus from six per year to 3 per year, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars that would be better spent saving the lives of children through other means. Statistically, during the morning and afternoon hours when children are traveling to and from school they are safer when they are inside of the bus than when they are outside of it. When I'm in Italy I'm more worried about getting killed by a Vespa that just turned the corner without slowing down than I am about getting killed while riding inside of a bus. It is probably safer to be sitting inside of a bus in Italy than it is to be a pedestrian.

Ten years ago a bus fell off of an overpass in Houston, Texas. The Texas legislature then passed a law requiring buses to have 3-point restraints, just like cars. However, the legislature didn't provide any funding to do it, so despite the law there are still no seat belts, except on newly made buses.

There is no such thing as EEA legislation. They have no enforcement authority. Their purpose is to make sure there is an open market across borders, sort of like NAFTA in North America. It is theoretically possible that a majority of the 28 European countries will pass a trade sanction against Italy because it doesn't have seat belts on buses, but I doubt that you are going to see that any time soon.

They ruled that dogs in a car must wear a canine seat belt. They ruled that cars must have a first aid kit, a reflective vest, and a reflective metal triangle stored in the trunk. The reflective vest has to be on when you get outside of a vehicle when it is stopped due to malfunction. A reflective metal triangle must be put 100 meters up-road so that oncoming cars are alerted. I've never seen any car that meets this requirement, but I guess it varies by country.

I admit that I may be completely wrong about this when it comes to long distance buses because I take the train for longer trips, where I can get up and walk around, have a cup of coffee, have a bite to eat, and my statement was too broad. However, on a typical bus that you use to get around in Rome, Palermo, Naples, Milan, Torino, or any other city in Italy, Europe, the USA, or around the world, there are never any seat belts.
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