Don't You Hate SUVs?(Sport Utility Vehicles)

Byline: Barbie Nadeau

Even for the quick and the nimble, driving in Rome has never been anything but a chore. At the best of times, it's a smog-choked labyrinth of buzzing mopeds, toddling grannies and chugging Fiats vying for cobblestone space. Add in a penchant for stopping dead in the middle of an impassable street to make a delivery or exchange pleasantries with passersby, no matter how many cars may be impatiently honking, and you have the very picture of automotive chaos.

Now a new nemesis has come to town: the SUV, or soove . For a sense of what the arrival of these behemoths portends for the city, imagine one of these monsters negotiating the twisting, narrow streets in the ancient neighborhood of Trastevere--the via dei Salumi, say. This particular passageway is a challenge even for a mini Fiat 500, for it features a series of very sharp turns around the unforgiving stone foundations of some of Rome's oldest buildings--gaily colored by the paint from scraped fenders. Along the way lies da Enzo trattoria, a cafe whose tables quaintly spill into the street, offering a sort of alfresco-dining/obstacle-course experience that can be as unnerving for drivers as for the diners who often have to get up and move their chairs and tables (plates of pasta in hand) so cars can pass.

I witnessed a mind-boggling snarl just the other day. A driver had managed to wedge his Hyundai Santa Fe (which isn't even that big) between a brick corner and a badly parked Smart, a DaimlerBenz scarcely bigger than a suitcase. As he struggled to get clear, every available space around him filled with mopeds, mamas pushing strollers and local ...