Speeding, and other traffic fines in Italy

PLEASE READ THIS:

I would like to underline that I do not suggest or condone the non-payment of fines. If I did, I would probably end up in big trouble here, and seeing as I live, work and have family here, I would like to avoid such a situation. If, by chance, someone has read this post, the comments and then decided not to pay, then do not blame me if you end up with problems as a result. Any and all advice I have provided to others has been and is provided informally – I am not an authority, and have not made any claim to be. For conclusive advice on the payment of traffic fines received as a result of a trip abroad, I recommend contacting motoring organisations, embassies or the police in your country of origin.

Sorry about the legalish stuff, but I thought covering my back may not be such a bad idea. You never know nowadays and this blog is public (Indeed, I have now been lucky enough to have been accused of being a scammer, I am not, but see the comments below and make up your own mind.) Now you can read the main post.. and the comments!

IMPORTANT UPDATE 17 February 2010

Revised: 7 March 2010

Reader Peter has very kindly drawn my attention to the called EC -v- Italian Republic, case no C-224/00.  The text of the case which is available in English and other European languages, can be seen here:

Judgment of the Court (Sixth Chamber) of 19 March 2002.
Commission of the European Communities v Italian Republic.

Failure by a Member State to fulfil its obligations – Article 6 of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 12 EC) – Difference in treatment of persons contravening the highway code according to the place of registration of their vehicle – Proportionality.

In essence, it does look as though the fines European Union citizens have been receiving are, and always have been invalid.

Again, I would reiterate that I am not a lawyer, so I cannot be sure, but I would repeat Peter’s suggestion that if you are a European Union resident and you have received a fine more than 210 days after an offence, you should write back quoting case no C-224/00, and saying you will write to MEPs etc about this.  If this does not get the Italian authorities off your back – then speak to a lawyer (class actions are possible in Italy now -and I know a good firm of lawyers too!).

In summary – if you received a fine for any motoring offence after 210 days, and you are an EU citizen, you may be able to refuse to pay on the basis of C-224/00.

And here is a comment from reader Pablo, dated 7 March 2010, which other people may find interesting:

Many posts above complain about the Italian authorities’ delay in notifying traffic penalties and their insistence on communicating in Italian. Fear not – the law is on your side, as I think both issues contravene the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically Part I Article 6:

“1 – In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interest of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.
2 – Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.
3 – Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:
(a) to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;
(b) to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence;
(c) to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;
(d) to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;
(e) to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court.”

NOTE: This should not be confused with Article 6 of the EC Treaty referred to in Alex’s 17 Feb “Important Update” at the top of this blog.

Key words/phrases italicised above are “within a reasonable time”, “presumed innocent”, “promptly”, “in a language which he understands”, “in detail” and “free … interpreter”.

You must be told promptly of an accusation – presumably so you can recall the circumstances of the incident and collect any evidence you need while memories are still fresh. It follows that if you were not told promptly, then you have obviously been denied the opportunity of “a fair & public hearing within a reasonable time”. Thus it seems the Italian law allowing up to a year to tell you about an accusation is incompatible with the ECHR and is therefore invalid & unenforceable. As Mike, James & Peter have mentioned, a UK prosecuting authority must serve a Notice of Intended Prosecution within 2 weeks of an alleged traffic offence, and a penalty notice or court summons within 6 months. If the UK can do it, so could Italy – if it wanted to. You can form your own opinion of why Italian authorities delay sending a penalty notice for a year or more. My guess is it’s to reduce the likelihood of drivers remembering what happened or having kept car hire paperwork & hotel/restaurant/fuel/shopping receipts (to prove when & where you were) after such a long time. Depending on its timing and the extent of detail given, notification of a violation (such as an “amicable” EMO invitation to accept a fine) might satisfy the requirement to inform you promptly of an accusation. But the penalty notice sent by registered post is the important one, so if it arrives after 210 days you can reject it as denying you the option of a hearing “within a reasonable time”.

Regarding time limits, if you receive a penalty notice ask the car rental Co for a copy of documents showing when the police asked for the renter’s data and when they were given, so you can check whether the prescribed timescales were complied with and reject the penalty as out of time if they over-ran. If they claim they’re allowed 360 days remind them of European Court case C-224/00 (see Alex’s 17 Feb “Important Update”). Although that case concerned disparity in the treatment of drivers depending on where their cars were registered, it reinforced the principle in ECHR Pt.1 Art.14 that laws must not discriminate between nationalities. Thus you can reject any liability on the basis that the 360-day rule discriminates against non-Italians, so is incompatible with the ECHR and is therefore invalid & unenforceable.

You can insist on being told of the accusation in your own language, despite what Italian authorities might prefer. Again, an Italian law allowing authorities to demand communication in Italian is incompatible with the ECHR and is therefore invalid & unenforceable. It seems you are allowed 60 days from receiving a fine to pay up or appeal, so you could email or fax – in your own language – on the 59th day from receiving a penalty notice in Italian (or an incorrect own-language translation containing bad grammar or wrong spelling such as “Grait” Britain), saying you don’t understand it and ask for an accurate translation. Meanwhile the 210-day clock is still ticking, as the notice doesn’t count as served unless it’s “in a language which [you] understand”, and of course sent by registered post. If it contains any factual errors (name, time, date, location, car Reg.No, make, model etc) you can safely ignore it as it does not accurately describe the accusation and is thus unprovable – but don’t tell ‘em as they could re-issue a correct one within the 210-day period. The longer you spin out the arguments the more they would be likely to abandon the fine or run out of time. As Alex suggested, you could impose your own time-limit, such as “If I do not receive the information requested within 14 days I will assume you have (a) withdrawn all accusation/s, (b) cancelled all associated penalties & charges and (c) ceased all action/s”. With luck they won’t bother to provide a proper translation in time, or just give up. If they complain send them a copy of Article 6 – in English – with the relevant text highlighted (to be ultra-helpful you could also send the Italian version if you can find it).

Another thing: in earlier posts Alex (and the Bella-Toscana link) suggested that Italian law assumes you are guilty until proved innocent. That too is incompatible with the ECHR, under which – as in most western-style democracies – the accused is presumed innocent until proved guilty. Thus an authority has no right to collect a penalty unless the accusation has been proved. Just saying you were seen in such a place at such a time does not prove you were. A photo of your car – or its number plate, or the driver, or the road – proves nothing without context such as time, date, place, nature of infringement and applicable law – including evidence that adequate signage was in place and operative (the international symbol of a red ring on a white background with a pictogram and/or text specifying the restriction). A close-up snap of a number plate without any verifiable context might lead a suspiciously-minded person to wonder if there could be an element of fakery involved, but of course I can’t imagine who could possibly be so uncharitable… Find the road in Google maps – there might be a “street view” showing if there were proper signs, properly positioned and visible. You could make their life more difficult by asking for proof – in your own language – that the recording equipment has been properly maintained, calibrated and tested, as we can in the UK for camera-related allegations. If the authority can’t prove the camera was working properly, who’s to say it recorded the correct time & date when the photo was taken or if a restriction actually applied when it was taken? Ask for the make & model of equipment and copies of certificates etc (translated to your language) showing this particular device has been certified & approved for this particular use; does it have a good or bad reliability history? You can probably think of a string of other things to slow up the process which you can keep trotting out, one after the other, until they get bored. If they don’t like it or won’t co-operate, tough – the greedy, profiteering scumbags shouldn’t try to rip off foreign tourists with unverified accusations. I certainly wouldn’t even think of using the appeals procedure, for which you have to deposit twice the initial fine! If they try to pursue you for non-payment, you’ll probably have a whole bunch of unanswered technical questions as your defence. The bottom line is, they must prove their case if asked.

EU member nations are legally bound to ensure their laws comply with the ECHR. Therefore I believe the above applies to all nationalities driving in Italy, not only EU citizens. National laws that don’t comply with EU legislation can be challenged in the European Court, as Alex pointed out in his 17 Feb “Important Update”. Italian cities probably issue several million of these fines every year (the Bella-Toscana article said 859,959 in Florence alone in 2008). If even only 10% were challenged it would clog the fines system to the extent it would be unworkable – and might even persuade city authorities to review their policy of killing off the tourist trade.

For those concerned at the legality of the above strategies, I must stress that none of them contravene any valid regulations or laws. On the contrary, they rely on applying the appropriate laws, though not necessarily those the Italian authorities would like. These arguments are equally valid if your own national traffic authority tries to collect under some sort of reciprocity agreement.

Like you Alex, I’m not a lawyer, just an ordinary bloke who can read & think, and I’ve no idea if any of this has been tested in court. If not, who’s first …?

End of 17 February 2o1o and March 7 2010 Updates

Speeding, and other traffic fines in Italy

I had a contact via this blog from some people (And I hope they don’t mind my mentioning this situation, but I do think it needs mentioning) who have, in a sense, come face to face with the black side of European unity, in that these people found an Italian speeding fine, written in Italian, lying on their English doormat after the postman had done his thing.

John Folkard, one of the many who have been caught out by the restricted traffic zone in Piza, posted something about the problem on the travel tips message boards of the UK newspaper the Daily Telegraph.

Check out my updates to this post, but please do try to read everything and the comments, yes, I know there are lots of them:

• SEE ALL PAGES FOR UPDATES and YET ANOTHER UPDATE, May 2007, for more info on Pisa, and
• look at One more update – 18/09/2007, for some potentially interesting info.

20th May 2007: SUGGESTION: If you wish, you can tell me where (Place, street, time, date) you got your fine and I will add it to the Platial Map system. I’d also like to post photos of the restricted traffic zone signs to help others avoid falling into the same trap.

Have a look at this more recent post:  Speed Cameras in Italy

It will help you to know what you need to look out for and where the cameras are.

Although, regretfully, it may be too late for many who arrive here, I’ve also written a post entitled:
How to Avoid Fines while Staying in Italy

I’ll try to keep both posts up to date, so check back here from time to time.

18/09/2007  update –

Time Limits – this is confusing

OK, I’ve had a look into this time limits thing a bit more and from what I can make out from the Italian Automobile Club site here.

There is indeed, as Sean commented below, a time limit of 150 days for the notification of the fine, if the individual committing the violation is resident in Italy.

This limit extends to 360 days for individuals committing violations who are not resident in Italy, however, these time limits run from as soon as the actual offender has been identified:

The Italian Law on Time Limits

In Italian from the Italian Automobile Club site: La Corte Costituzionale, con sentenza 198/1996, ha stabilito che il termine dei 150 giorni, nel caso in cui l’identificazione dell’effettivo trasgressore avvenga successivamente rispetto al momento in cui la violazione è stata commessa, decorre dalla data in cui l’autorità è in grado di identificarlo. -

My translation: Decision 198/1996 of the Constitutional Court established that the 150 (360 days – for non-Italian residents) day period in situations in which the identification of the actual offender is subsequent to the moment in which the violation occurred shall run from the date the authority is able to identify such offender.

———————–

It appears that the 360 day period starts running from as soon as the police have been advised by the car rental company, friend, etc, who was driving the car at the time of the offence.

This means, presumably, that the police must then send you a fine within this 360 day period, otherwise it is no longer valid.

Note: the car rental company, friend etc have 60 days to advise the police that they were not driving the vehicle at the time of the offence.

My understanding (I am not a lawyer):

• If you have directly received a fine notification which is in your name, you need to know when the rental company got round to telling the police who you are – then you add 360 days to this date – so you can check by when the police should have sent you the fine.
• If it clearly turns out that more than 360 days has passed, you probably do not have to pay.

In summary:

If the offence is committed by someone using a car that is registered in Italy, the police then have 150 days to notify the car owner.

Car owner then has 60 days to tell the police that the driver was foreign and to supply details of the driver.

The police have 360 days to send the fine to the offending driver.

What Could Happen:

• Let’s assume that the fine arrives at the hire company (or car owner) after 149 days (in time under Italian law)
• Next, the car owner tells the police that the driver who committed the offence was foreign after 59 days. (208 days have passed since the fine arrived)
• The police then send out a fine to the foreign driver that arrives after 359 days. (360 day limit when driver is foreign)

This means that the total time elapsed from the offence to the fine arriving in another country is 149 + 59 + 359 which equals 567 days.

The driver then has 60 days to either pay or dispute the fine or the amount of the fine increases.

What remains unclear is how the Italian police/authorities can prove that they notified you within the 360 time limit. Registered post may be one option, and if you receive a fine by normal post, then you could, in theory and I am not saying that you should do this, simply throw it away and deny any knowledge of it. Things certainly get lost in the post here in Italy – I can attest to this.

If anyone would like to corroborate my interpretation, then please do. I have tried to wade though the Italian law on this, but did not manage to find all the relevant sections, subsections, commas, and/or subsequent modifications to same. Sorry. But you can have a look here to start with, if you can read Italian:
Article 201 – Notification of Violations.

20/02/2008 UPDATE to time limits

Thanks to information provided by Rusty via his comments, it appears as though the Italian authorities have two years to collect fines, but I don’t know if the two year period starts when the fine arrives, or when someone fails to pay the fine within the 60 day pay/up or dispute period.

In simple terms:

• You receive a fine notification via registered mail.

• You do nothing.

• The Italian police do nothing.

• Two years pass – you no longer have to pay the fine.

Whether you decide to sit this two year period out and see what happens, is up to you, but those in the European Union should perhaps watch out for reciprocal fine collection agreements.

Anyway, if this happens to someone, and they come to Italy after two years, they do not have to worry.

If I come across any more information, I’ll post it here. Sorry I did not cotton on to this before, but, as I now have to point out – I am not an expert on this. If you know someone who is, please, oh, please let me know, and I mention this expert here.

29/09/2007 UPDATE:

This issue has been discussed on several forums:

• Here: Virtual Tourist
• And here: Trip Advisor
• Here, in another language: Euro Travel
• Life in Italy’s forum has also considered this issue: Life in Italy

If you come across any more, let me know.