[pmezard]

As a French, being passed by the right by Italian drivers on the highway really makes me feel the superiority of Southern Europeans judgment over my puny habit of blindly following rules. Or does it?

But yes, I do the same. I just do not come here to pretend this is virtue.

[pmontra]

The rules in France are probably different but passing on the right is legal on Italian highways, in one circumstance: if one keeps driving on the lane on the right and somebody slower happens to be driving on the lane on the left. The rationale is that it normally happens when traffic is packed, so it's ok even if there is little traffic. Everybody keep driving straight and there is no danger.

It's not legal if somebody is following the slower car on the left and steers to the right to pass. However some drivers stick to the left at a speed slower than the limit and if they don't yield what happens is that eventually they get passed on the right.

The two cases have different names. The normal pass is "sorpasso", the other one (passing by not steering) is "superamento", which is odd but they had to find a word for it.

[pjmlp]

Not sure if it is a virtue, but standing as a pedestrians in an empty street at 3 AM waiting for a traffic light to turn green doesn't make much sense either, it isn't as if a ghost car is coming out of nowhere.

It should be a matter of judgement and not following rules just because.

[zajio1am]

It makes sense as it allows to walk city streets safely on autopilot while thinking about other things.

[EPendragon]

I kind of agree. The rules for safety should be simple, straightforward, and protect you in the "edge cases", i.e. following while not paying 100% of attention, protect you with a malicious actor in mind aka reckless driver, etc. Ideally, in a system like that it should be a difficult and intentional behavior if one wanted to break the rules rather than to follow them.

[paganel]

One should not pass any street on “auto-pilot”, no matter if there’s a green light for pedestrians.

[EPendragon]

I agree. I mostly mean that it is good to strive towards a system of rules that will be easy to follow and difficult to break by default. That is an ideal case. In reality, it is never that simple.