We had just pulled out of the school carpark when 13-year-old Róisín looked up and spotted a small, unfamiliar little car go by. "Look, Daddy, there's another of those minicars," she said. "You know, next year I could be driving one of those to school." From Paddy Agew in Rome
Teenage children tend to keep one up to date. So it should come as no surprise that I first noticed the microvettura (minicar) thanks to the interest of Róisín. Along with the latest cell phones, CD walkmans and baggy pants, these noisy little lawnmowers-for-the-road have come to occupy an elevated place among the "have-to-have" icons of Roman teenagers.
Measuring two-and-a-half metres long, weighing less than 350 kilos and fitted with a 50 cc diesel or petrol engine, these "quadricycles" or "microcars" snort along Rome's traffic-clogged roads at a comfortable 50 kph - or faster when illegally souped-up. Despite sitting low to the ground, they look every inch a motor car, albeit of the small "city car" variety.
Fact is that the little blighters are motor cars and, what's more, you don't need a licence to drive one. Hence, their cult status among the teenagers of Rome. Under Italian legislation, these minicars are classified as "mopeds", meaning that 14-year-olds can - and do - drive these minicars even though you have to be 18 before qualifying for a driver's licence.
We have had occasion on these pages to point out the imposing dimensions of Rome's traffic problems. It will be no surprise, therefore, to find that the minicar has caught on in the Eternal City.
While it might seem foolhardy in the extreme to send out a 14-year-old with little or no knowledge of the rules of the road (and probably less sense) into Rome's modern-day chariot race, there is a line of reasoning which argues that a teenager in a minicar is likely to be safer than a teenager on a moped.
As anyone with a teenager in the house can testify, there comes a period in parental life when Mum and Dad do their best to fit in their work timetables around the pressures of their real, full-time job - namely, driving recalcitrant offspring to and from school, parties, music lessons, basket-ball practice, the bus stop, the train station and so on.
A number of busy Roman parents, it would seem, have thrown in the towel. Too busy to do the old unpaid chauffeur routine and too frightened to let Giovanni or Maria hit the road on a moped, they have opted for the minicar.
By the way, for those of you unfamiliar with Roman traffic, let us just point out that driving a moped around the Eternal City is only slightly more dangerous than cycling your bike up the wrong side of the Naas dual carriageway on a wet night without lights.
With just two gears, drive and reverse, the minicar is relatively easy to drive. Given its size, too, it's easy to park.
The cars come fitted with just two front seats, while legislation requires that drivers without licences do not carry passengers. Need one add that this latest requirement is systematically ignored by the city's gilded youth.
Indeed, these little beasties, produced by French auto-makers Ligier, Aixam, Chatenet and Divane Bellier, have apparently only one drawback - their high purchase price. The most popular cars on the Roman streets cost from €8,000 to €13,000.
That price tag notwithstanding, however, the minicars have done well in Rome with an estimated 5,000 of them currently scuttling merrily around the Italian capital. That figure compares with a Europe-wide total of 250,000.
For many Roman parents, the vista of no more school runs, no more chaperones and no more hanging around at the bus stop is too tempting to resist.
Of course, not all of those who drive these little cars are teenagers. They also serve a purpose for adults whose licences have been revoked - they can be driven into Rome's historic centre where cars are much restricted but where mopeds and minicars can move relatively freely.
Even though the European Association of Manufacturers and Importers of Quadricycles claims that minicars are twice as safe as normal cars, not everyone agrees.
The Italian Association of Road Accident Victims has expressed grave reservations about the safety implications of such a low age limit.
Those concerns have been partly addressed in the new Italian highway code, due to come into effect later this year. The new code has instituted a special "mini-driving test" for all moped riders - and therefore minicar drivers. So, a licence of sorts will be required.
The success of the minicar which has so definitively "arrived" is confirmed by the existence of a flourishing black market in stolen minicars in the greater Rome area. About five of them are stolen every month. Need one add that the majority are stolen from, yes, school car parks.