The 1969 caper The Italian Job spawned a Hollywood remake, helped drive the cool-factor of the Mini and launched decades of dad-jokes about bloody doors being blown off. It may also have inspired one driver who got stuck trying to travel down the Spanish Steps in Rome this week.
The film ended with Michael Caine teetering on the edge of a cliff in a coach, claiming to have a “great idea”. In Rome, the 80-year-old’s navigational error on his way to work ended with emergency services having to bring in a crane to winch his vehicle off the Italian capital’s landmark.
But it is not only in Rome where steps, or indeed navigational issues, can create havoc for drivers. In the slightly less celebrated surrounds of north London’s Maitland Park estate, residents have been complaining about drivers getting their cars stuck trying to rehash one of the film’s most famous scenes by driving down a small flight of steps.
According to the Camden New Journal, five cars met their match on the five concrete steps within the space of a month last year, with some of the drivers reportedly blaming their satnav apps for leading them there.
Michael Caine in The Italian Job (1969). Photograph: Paramount/Allstar
One resident, Aron Kennedy, posted online about the phenomenon, which he referred to as a “new Camden tourist attraction along with Karl Marx”. He told the paper: “If it happens one more time I think we might have to get a living statue of a car stuck there permanently.”
In Plymouth in 2017, it was reported that a driver turned off a road, through the gap in railings at a pedestrian crossing, across the pavement and through a covered walkway leading under a block of flats and a small supermarket, before parking the silver Vauxhall Corsa facing downwards on a flight of steps. All because the satnav had reportedly said to turn left at Tesco.
And so many lorries have got stuck following their satnavs down a narrow country lane in Cornwall that one man reportedly paid £150 for a large yellow sign that read, in block capitals: “Do not follow satnav. This route is unsuitable. You will get stuck.” According to a local newspaper report last month, this was not enough to stop it happening yet again.
In Somerset, by a 6ft-wide lane, stands a house that has reportedly sustained £50,000 of damage over several years of HGV drivers trying to force their way past while following directions on their devices.
And those are just domestic tales of driving woe. Driving when abroad can be particularly confusing. Guardian readers have been sharing some of their own experiences. Otieno Okatch said he and his wife, from California, rented a car in Switzerland during the annual Fasnacht celebrations.
“One day, we ended up in downtown Lucerne and got lost. The streets were oddly empty. We turned the corner and had inadvertently entered the city Fasnacht parade. We were mortified. A police escort had to help us get out as thousands stared at the two foreigners.”
Anand Ranganathan, also from California, told of an experience when he and his wife were in Arles, France while touring the country about 14 years ago. Forced by hefty mobile roaming charges to follow printed-out Google Maps directions to their hotel, they were sent down a “one-lane road that had a retractable bollard in the middle of it”.
He said: “Only drivers who had a special code were allowed to go through it … Of course, we didn’t realise this until we got close to the bollard. Now we were stuck. There was a line of cars behind us and a bollard in front of us … The cars behind us were honking, the driver immediately behind us was cursing us in well-considered French, and I was standing there gesticulating to indicate that I was but a lost tourist.”
To stairs in London and Devon, narrow lanes in Cornwall and Bouches-du-Rhône, add for one driver: a picturesque flight of steps in the heart of the Italian capital.