Italian police with their Lamborghini patrol car

Iano Romano (Italy), Nov. 12: It is not a toy, they swear, but a serious piece of police gear, no matter how many Japanese tourists stood at a highway rest stop here snapping away in awe.

?It?s a responsibility to drive it,? said chief inspector Laura Ciano of the Italian highway police. Paolo Mazzini, a highway police commander, said: ?Italians are not always friendly toward authorities. They are curious, so they accept the ticket more readily.?

Still, superintendent Vincenzo Bizzarro wore a satisfied look on his face when he gave a reporter, fingers dug into fine leather seats, a small taste of what the force?s new Lamborghini Gallardo patrol car can do: nearly 100 miles an hour in just a few seconds. With a slim aerodynamic siren and sleek blue paint job, it looks great too: a perfectly Italian tool to foil the famously fast and anarchic Italian drivers.

?Can I take a picture?? one man at the rest stop asked. ?Please do,? Bizzarro said.

Few make the case that the highway police need a Lamborghini. But in a nation crazed with car racing, few would say they do not need one either. Certainly not the police.

Most drivers they stop are a bit stunned, they said, and unusually passive. A taste of that was evident following the Gallardo on the highway. The speedsters in the passing lane stuttered down instantly, including two puppy-size cars, a Renault and a Smart car, unsure what the larger dog on the right had in mind.

?They say, ?Well, they are taking away my licence but at least it?s by a Lamborghini?,? Ciano said. ?Even when you write tickets, they say, ?What a nice car?.? The chief inspector, a police officer for 15 years, thinks so, too. Her car at home is a Ford station wagon.

?It?s more fun to drive at work,? she said.