Earlier quoted context omitted.
Italy's roads aren't that bad, actually (at least in the north). The problem is that they are covered with Italian drivers, and there are an awful lot of them: 60 million in an area a bit smaller than California. (Well, 60 million inhabitants - not all of them drive, but more drive than they ought to)
I wasn't trying to imply that Italy's roads were bad, just pointing out that US roads are unusually excellent . I picked Italy instead of Germany to avoid a pointless message board argument comparing Germany's often-excellent roads to Mississipi's.
People (and by that I mean Americans, sorry) seem to think Germany's roads are an exception. While this may have been true 20 or 30 years ago, in reality they're pretty much the same as or even a little worse than the rest of Europe. An exception might be the EU10, but they're catching up really fast.
Also, 20-lane motorways through the centre of a city is not a sign of excellency but rather that of poor planning.