It’s a JPG scan.
Ethically, you have to pay because you broke the law. Legally you have to pay because you broke the law, regardless of how severe or light the consequences are.
Being aware while driving in a different country with a different measurement system (kilometers instead of miles) is a good start, but doesn’t mean that you succeeded.
Or the machine that measured your speed was off.
IAMNAItalian, nor a car driver here, but I don’t think that’s required. The police - or the company that the police outsourced the speed control to - have a picture of the car whose number was registrered to you breaking the speed limit; they don’t have to show it to you (though they might).
First, how do you know? Do you know the accident rate on this stretch of road? I know that there are regularly screams from the car drivers that the state is milking them for revenue, and just as regularly the police points out that they put their speed cameras where a lot of accidents happen, or where a straight part of road induces people to speed above the limit.
This doesn’t preclude individual instances of police or companies setting up revenue traps, but it’s not the default way here. If the automobile club or a similar above-board group can show to the city council that the cameras were placed with regard to revenue and not to accidents or other issues, then the city council is obliged to and will crack down on the cops/ company in question.
There are also regularly cries from foreign drivers in the southern countries like Italy being hit far harder = with higher fines than the native citizens for small infractions. At that point, the officials of that country usually reply along the lines of “You tourists come here and drive like maniacs in the knowledge that fines won’t hit your registry home, so we want to stop the behaviour and have to go drastic”.
Not at all: 1. Italy
2. The police/ company had to go to the rental agency, which had to look in their files who rented that car in that time, think about giving out your adress, and then the postal service had to row the boat across the ocean.
If it’s a camera trap, you don’t see a police officer at all. That’s why they put the cameras up in the first place, so they don’t tie up cops standing around all day just measuring speed.
Probably a photo of the car with the license plate. They may send a copy with the ticket, but I don’t think they are obliged to.
There probably is a notice - in Italian! - on the form somewhere about how to contest it, until what date, and where.
Though usually, you only contest a ticket if you have proof yourself that you didn’t do it. You don’t go to court if you are guilty of the infraction. So you would need solid proof that either you didn’t drive the car on that time, or that you kept the speed limit, or that their equipment is faulty - if a bunch of tickets around the same time were all way over the speed limit. If you think it’s likely that you speeded by the amount given, so it’s not wildly impossible, you have no practical options left.
No, it doesn’t work that way over here - special delivery forms for all notices or traffic fines would be far too expensive for the police! The legal assumption is that you received the letter unless you can prove that you didn’t.
The native Italian drivers may drive like crazy (it’s been a while since I was there), but regularly, the automotive club warns the German drivers on vacation that the southern police likes to come down hard on foreign drivers.
Recall that the question was, “What are the consequences?”, not “what is your opinion about what I should do.”
My point was that the notice gave no indication of how they determined that I was speeding. (I subsequently got further information by going to the web site mentioned in the notice.)
The incident occurred in August 2009. The rental company provided the information in December, though I don’t know when the agency requested it. Once I got a camera ticket in D.C. and it took them about a week to issue the ticket. None of this is really direct to the OP, just strikes me as odd.
Surely you can see that selective enforcement of the law diminishes respect for the law, and deservedly so. So no need for stern lectures on the OP’s civic responsibilities, if indeed it is a shakedown attempt posing in legal garb.
I have home in Italy and drive a rental care about 4 times a year there.
Four years ago I got a fine by post in England (many months later) - they’d tracked my address via the rental company (which I think was Avis, from memory). Due to home life complications (relationship break-up, leaving home, mislaying half my paperwork) I never got round to paying the fine - it was just about the last thing on my list of priorities.
Talking to Italians and British residents over there, the consensus seems to be that the Italian police send a fine in the hope that you - foreigner - will pay it, but that they don’t have the time or resource to chase you up if you don’t.
I have never been chased. I have also used the same rental company on many occasions since.
But please don’t take my word for it, just anecdotal.
Here, inside the EU, it will be enforced as a fine by your domestic legal system. As I doubt the US courts will be induced to enforce the ticket, you can probably ignore it if you never go to Europe again.
Very likely the time period for contesting it has already expired before you got it.
It’s standard for fixed radars, they don’t come with an attached cop.
Yes, it’s the standard here too, you won’t know about it until the ticket arrives.
I received three traffic tickets dated June 29, 2011 for driving in a bus lane in Rome on Aug 29, 2010 on the same street at 10:29 am, 10:45 am, and 10:48 am. Given an ID and password to a website that showed a copy of my rental agreement and photo of same car I drove in Rome.
Emailed emo asking they reduce three tickets of 99 Euros each to one ticket. We have already been through the three unexpected charges from Hertz which we tried to reject but were accepted by our bank.
EU laws say if they don’t give official notice of payment (registered letter) within 365 days of receipt of car rental information, then you can ask the charges be annulled.
Other veteran travel sites say if you do not pay, Italy can and has gone back to Hertz for payment and then Hertz charges you considerably more. The violation is valid for 5 years. Risk Italy will not have Hertz pay them and wait 5 years to return or pay much more to car rental company. Smartest thing is to just pay the $450 in fines.
We’ll keep you posted.
Fake your death and live off the grid. It’s the only way out. If you need help I know a guy, who knows, a guy, who knows a girl who’s got a boat and a chainsaw.
IANAL but I have heard that Canada and the United States used to have trouble with citizens from the other country ignoring traffic tickets because there was no method of enforcing them such as you described. So they eventually negotiated a treaty that extended the payment of traffic violations across the border. If you are an American and you have an overdue unpaid Canadian traffic ticket, you will be required to pay it when you re-register your car in the United States (and vice versa if you’re a Canadian with an unpaid American ticket).
That said, I have no idea if a similar policy exists with Italy.
Ontario (when it had photoradar) and I understand several other provinces, changed the law so that the registered owner was liable for photo-induced fines. It greatly simplified the collection process and the court arguments.
I assumed back when I rented cars in Europe that the same rules applied, but obviously this is not the case based on the OP. The time I rented a car in Italy, I did not get any tickets, but the rental agreement warning said they would pay any traffic tickets and charge my credit card. Presumably they meant parking fines then?
Wild West days of Italian driving and financial institutions are over. Large contrast between my 1st stay 1996-2001 and 2nd 2006-2008. Much less tolerance of speeding, drinking, reckless driving not to mention what seemed to be an exponential increase in car numbers and traffic delays especially along the A4 corridor (northern Italy). The banks, credit cards, police, utilities, toll roads, etc… are all pretty well intertwined.
Somewhere in the rental car agreement (font=zpaf dingbats, size=1) there is a statement about you being responsible for any sort of mayhem to the car or fines/tolls uncollected. The rental car company will have to pay the fine and will charge you the fine plus penalty.
The longer it goes on, I suspect the penality part will get much larger especially since it now seems that a third party is now involved in the collection process.
Another option would be to cancel the card. Just sayin.
That would prevent you from being directly charged but if you signed a rental agreement in which you agree to compensate the company for certain incidentals the credit card required at rental time is just the convenient method of collecting. If for any reason the rental company cannot charge that card they can still certainly send you collections notices, eventually turning it over to a collections agency and impacting your credit.
I’m not familiar with credit cards on such situations but I know that if you close a checking account with checks outstanding or auto charges that later process the bank can hold you responsible. Often it carries over to new accounts you open as well, I knew someone who had $500 in checks hit after he closed his account. He refused to pay the bank, but years later when opening a new checking account the bank in his new town declined him as a customer until he settled the matter with his previous bank.
I think he took your advice, but he came back as a zombie.
*Seriously, people, it took eight posts to make a zombie joke? Shame upon the entire SDMB.
France, Austria, Belgium and Wisconsin. Especially in Wisconsin if you are a passenger in a vehicle that is not speeding, but happens to have Canadian plates. No, I’m not bitter.