Honking is a harmless replacement for solving disputes with handguns. You probably drove in low-stress environments.

There is a low-stress driving environment in Italy? Where's that?

Milan is the only place I have ever been where reversing on the high way is a reasonable solution to missing an off-ramp.

A low amount of low stress people can be found late at night, on highways at negligible traffic hours, on the narrow and meandering country roads that everybody learns to avoid, in half-empty parking lots, and many other obvious uncommon situations.

oops, that might have been me. I kid. I only do that when completely lost trying to get out of an autogrill parking lot (!).

Italy is really 2 countries, north and south are quite distinct.

What's the difference between them in terms of driving?

Where ever you are in Italy, you will be told by locals that you can't trust anyone from a town south of that place.

Even in Lampedusa?

When I was there (ages ago), the driver of the bus I was on overtook on a blind corner on a road cantilevered off a cliff. They did cross themselves before doing it.

Try driving in Naples.

Naples is the first place I got honked at for not cutting the person off. I was at a stop sign, making a left turn onto a main road that had a steady stream of traffic. Apparently, I was supposed to wait a few seconds and then just creep out, cutting cars off on the way, which is what I believe the driver on the main road meant when he beeped at me and gesticulated wildly while I was sitting still at the stop sign.

That city was the first place where I saw a guy traffic splitting with a car. It was an ancient topolino, but my jaw dropped as he was snaking through traffic like on a moped.