I drove a rental car in Italy last year during a vacation in August. Yesterday I received a notice from an Italian municipality that I am being fined 188.10 euros for going 85 kph in a 60. (The American translation of this is being fined $235 for doing 53 mph in a 37 zone).
In the U.S. if I failed to pay a ticket, the fine would increase and potentially there would be trouble registering a car, renewing my license, a warrant for my arrest, etc., etc.
What would be the consequences of failing to pay this ticket? Would I be unable to rent a car in Italy again? Anywhere in the EU? Banned from renting from the same rental company again? Get a visit from Rocco and Guido?
Because this is a legal and ethical matter I am not asking for advice as to whether I should pay it, only information about what happens when someone doesn’t pay such a ticket.
I don’t have any recollection of exceeding the speed limit although I did drive in the general area on the date and time cited. I was trying to be particularly aware of speed limits because I knew that camera enforcement was common. There was no photographic or other technical proof offered in the notice. This appears to be a revenue-raising effort more than a law enforcement effort. The fact that it took them over 10 months to cite me also seems odd.
WAG. Assuming the ticket is genuine, you could be arrested the next time you enter an EU country providing Italy goes hog wild and issues a warrant for your arrest.
BTW, does the date and time of the ticket coincide with your rental documents? In other words, were you in actual possession of the rental vehicle on the date this allegedly occurred, and in the vicinity of where the ticket was issued?
Same thing happened to me a few years ago. The notice was in italian and I kept putting off following up. When I never heard from them again, I assumed they collected the money from the rental car company but never really looked at my credit card statements to make sure. Guess I’ll find out the next time I go to Italy!
Curious - you got this ticket in a mail? So you never actually spoke to a police officer while you were there? It seems pretty fishy to be issuing tickets in this way. What is their proof of the alleged incident? Is there an option to contest it?
My WAG is that it is all legit. You admit that you were in that area at that time, so it is more likely that they tracked you down correctly than that they grabbed your name at random. The reason that it took 10 months probably has to do with the speed of paperwork between the police and the rental company.
When I got a speed camera ticket on a rental in New Zealand the nice people at Hertz were kind enough to pay the ticket and charge my credit card for the amount. Keep an ey on whatever card you used for the rental, they may have the same policy.
I got it in the mail, and was never pulled over. I assume this was a camera ticket, which is common there. However, the letter does not indicate how my speed was measured.
This was a Hertz car. Last year they sent me a letter about the violation and charged my credit card $45.00 24 DEC 2009. I thought that was the end of it. Today I called Hertz and they told me that the charge was not the fine, it was their fee for looking up and providing my name and address to the municipality.
There is no direction for how to contest the ticket.
It appears that the notice was issued by a third party contractor. At the bottom, it says: “The Municipal Police have delegated [third party] to manage this case… The present notice is not a notification of violation and therefore it permits the receiver to make the due payment in amicable circumstances thus avoiding the consequences of a notificaiton according to the International Conventions in force.”
In other words, it’s not a legal notice, it’s a bill, but if I don’t pay it, they will get nasty.
The notice has a web site. The web site has an image of the actual violation notice, though it’s in Italian and I’m not sure I can get through a whole page of legalese Italian. It also has an image of my rental agreement from Hertz, and a photo of the car, so it’s certainly not a scam.
Anecdotal evidence is all I could find. Some people report that nothing happens whatsoever (and they have returned to the country in question many times). Others report that the fine increased until the police went after the rental company who then paid up and charged the customer’s card, the customer was also banned from using the rental company again.
Was the letter ‘sign on delivery’? If not then there is no proof (other than this thread) that you ever received the fine in the first place.
I would pay the fine and make haste. Especially since the rental company has your credit card information and could easily just charge it. And maybe by that time the cost will be higher.
We’re talking about Italy here. This is a country that will take your car if you are caught driving with expired registration. Not talking about impounding it until you pay, or charging you some extra late fees or something. I am talking about forcing you to surrender your car forever simply because your registration lapsed a week.
I wouldn’t fuck around with Italy.
Yeah, what **Bear_Nenno **said. Every time (fortunately, not many) that I’ve gotten a ticket in a rental car in a foreign country, it’s eventually caught up with me. Because of the rental, your credit card is on file and the fine will eventually be charged to it if you don’t so something about it sooner.
I guess they could possibly have a warrent for your arrest attached to your passport information, therefore the next time you enter the EU and go through immigration, you could be asked to step out of line and follow the uniformed officers into the back room.
This is probably not too helpful to the OP but I will throw it out there anyway----I think in Europe in general, driving offences are taken much more seriously than in most places in the USA.
There are many places (France, Austria, Belgium) that demand payment for speeding or other driving infractions instantly, with either cash or credit card required right there on the spot, under threat of immediate arrest.
Of course the VERY strict European blood-alcohol limits for drivers are well known to most travellers as another area where the US and Europe have very different standards…
Just going by stereotypes, I could believe this for Germany or France, but Italy? I’ve never been to any of the three countries, but somehow I had the impression that Italian drivers were not as worried about traffic enforcement as denizens of other lands.
