Italian police, the carabinieri (carbs), sit on the side of the road and when they want to stop a random car, they hold out a little paddle with a red circle on it people call a lollipop. Italian drivers, not all but in my experience most, tend to follow to closely, they also tend to pass at any given opportunity and are unbelievably impatient.
This all came together today when I saw a traffic stop turn into a motorcycle accident.
Carbs are sitting on the side of the road, pretty common spot. A scooter, followed by 4 cars and 2 motorcycles are coming toward them. Carb steps out, lollipops the scooter as car 1 was passing him. Scooter and car 1 hit the brakes and turn on right signals.
Car 2, seeing his opportunity to pass, makes his move then sees carbs and brakes hard. Car 3 and 4 brake hard cause they're all basically driving right up each others asses.
Motorcycle 1, nice shiny Duc 1198, who is directly on car 4's ass, locks it up and dumps his bike in the road while bike 2 slows just in time not to hit car 4.