Traffic fine one year later! What to do?
 

I just received a traffic violation fine from my last trip to Italy in Aug of 2010. The fine is for 123 euros which I think is a outrageous sum for a traffic ticket! I have read some of your comments on this subject before but I wanted to get some up to date info on what to do with this ticket. Can I be penalized on future trips to Italy if I chose not to pay? Do people really send such large sums of money to a foreign country for such a minor offense. I tried to be very careful about the no traffic zones. I really am not sure that the offense is correct in the destination that is stated on the ticket. If not paid in 60 days the payment goes to 201 euros. Any appeal must be written in Italian, so that is not doable. I would appreciate hearing from you on this matter.

What answer are you looking for? Are you looking for backing if you decide to ignore the ticket or an explanation of why paying the fine is the responsible thing to do?

My 2c. Pay up.

First of all - the size of the sum really isn't large. In NYC a parking ticket is $150 - so $175 for a moving violation seems perfectly reasonable. Be glad that it isn't points on your license and doesn't drive up your car insurance hundreds of dollars a year.

If this is a rental car it is likely that the agency will charge you for the ticket (plus fees and perhaps interest) through your credit card if you don;t pay it directly.

<i>I really am not sure that the offense is correct in the destination that is stated on the ticket.</i>

This might be possible. I received a ticket for an unregistered car at a location 200 miles from my home while I was in Europe and my properly registered car was in my garage. But that was in the States. And since you already figure that you cannot appeal in Italian, you might was well pay up.

BTW, were you billed earlier by your rental agency for passing to the proper Italian authority your mailing address? If so, you were forewarned.

Perhaps your title SHOULD have said, "Traffic VIOLATION One Year Earlier."

Yes, I understand your frustration. We got a traffic ticket months after driving in Siena and supposedly into a restricted zone. I figured, perhaps stupidly, that this was not some sort of random scam by the Italian authorities and that I probably DID commit the violation so I went on line and paid the fine.

It's really funny because since then nobody here or anywhere else has said they aren't interested in anything I have to say because I was stupid and paid this fine.

If you AREN'T going to pay it, then don't do so. Nobody here can tell you for certain what may or may not happen; only what has happened to them.

As with Spain, ignore it. If you don't have a DIN (National Identification Number), you will not be able to pay the fine on-line. I've have one that's outstanding for over two years. When I first receive it there was a discount for paying early, but the notice arrived 6 months after the "infraction", speeding (speed trap) and well past the time to apply the discount.

>>>Can I be penalized on future trips to Italy if I chose not to pay?<<<

Probably not. Someone I know that owns a house in Umbria gets tickets all the time and never pays them. She goes to Italy several times a year and always picks up a rental car at the airport. She gets parking tickets in places like Assisi and Cortona and doesn't pay those either. It hasn't caused her any problems so far (she leaves for Italy Tuesday and plans to pick up a car at FCO). YMMV.

>>>I really am not sure that the offense is correct in the destination that is stated on the ticket.<<<

If you have the rental car in that town on that day, then your license picture was probably taken unless you had already returned it and someone else had picked it up.

I was concerned my travel partner was wracking up tickets last year for speeding. So far we haven't received any tickets. I think we returned the car the first week of September so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I received two such tickets and they both came one year after I had been there. I honestly didn't realize my infraction but I paid the tickets online according to the instructions. I just didn't want any trouble with the traffic agency (police) or with Avis when I rent a car in the future.

I've no idea why these questions come up about not paying traffic fines in other countries. Would you not pay one here? My husband was just fined over $200 for going less than 10 miles over the limit in a traffic stop here. There's nothing outrageous about the amount. Plus note that legally you agreed to pay all such charges when you signed your rental car agreement.
Good for all those people who did go on line and pay - it's always frustrating to get a ticket wherever you are, but it doesn't make it ok not to pay it...

<i>My husband was just fined over $200 for going less than 10 miles over the limit in a traffic stop here.</i>

In the States, the penalty for not paying is much more obvious, especially in your home state. It may be less so in Italy, especially if your return to that country in the immediate future is not anticipated.

I think your ideas are unrealistic or uninformed if you think that is an "outrageous" sum for a traffic ticket. There are plenty of tickets wehre I live in the US that are that much. The fines for parking at an expired meter in a sidestreet or something aren't so bad, but even parking tickets can be expensive if they are more serious than that. In Wash DC, I think the tickets are $100 for a parking fine if you park in rush hour traffic where you aren't supposed to.

Pay the man the $2

So it's OK to commit a crime if you're not caught?

Granted the OP may have committed the infraction inadvertently - as every cop in the world says - ignorance of the law is no excuse.

You can risk not paying - and nothing may happen.

Or you may have to pay more if they pile on interest and penalties. (A local hasn;t given their CC number to a rental agency - and knows what they can or can't get away with. Still not right - but more informed.)

I just received a ticket from Pisa for driving in a restricted zone in March 2013. The frustrating thing is I remember we drove all over to make sure we found a proper parking spot so we wouldn't get a ticket. I am all about personal responsibility. Clearly I was there. I turned onto a restricted street and passed through without seeing the sign. I even looked it up on Google Maps and saw it and the camera above. So I did it. They got me. My fault. What gets my goat is the ticket was 101 euros and was 125 if I didn't pay within 5 days of "notification." The letter went out 3 weeks ago and I got it today. I went to the site and it was already telling me I owed 125. I could protest it but my time is worth a lot more than a few euros. So I paid it. It isn't worth having problems renting cars in the future or getting a collection notice contracted out by the municipality of Pisa to a US company. I read they do that. I do think it's my last trip to Italy, not because of the ticket, but because of the ripoff late fee that is assured to be assessed if you live outside of Italy.

I don;t think I would refuse to go back to Italy because of 24 euros. They are not doing this to torture tourists - they probably catch mostly locals.

And what would you really do with an extra $33 anyway?

I would have paid the €101 . . . You were not notified until you received the letter. I would have sent the money with a letter explaining the date you received it.

The way I look at it is this - I have been to over 70 countries and have many more to go. If they can't have an honest system that waits until they receive the return receipt to actually know when you got the notice before they auto-assess the penalty, then I will take my tourist dollars elsewhere. Maybe I am penalizing the service industry instead of the municipalities, but well so be it.

And my guess is it's decidedly NOT locals who get such tickets because they know to avoid the restricted streets. So the balance are mostly foreign tourists like myself who accidentally take a wrong turn on a deserted street in an unfamiliar place looking for a legal parking spot. My biggest lesson is to stick to trains in Europe, which we usually do.

<i>If they can't have an honest system that waits until they receive the return receipt to actually know when you got the notice before they auto-assess the penalty</i>

As far as I know, all tickets assume a deadline after which there is a penalty fee. There is second evaluation to see if the offender paid on time. This is a spurious justification for expressing anger.

As for the ZTLs, they have been discussed extensively on this forum and they are no different than non-posted, i.e. assumed, speed limits. For example, France will assume that as soon as one reaches the official sign announcing a town, the speed limit goes down to 50 kph. A couple of hundred years farther, there will be a "rappel 50 kph" sign, which is a reminder. Between the town sign and this reminder, the foreign tourist may be driving too fast--it's his fault.

Seems like punishing yourself by avoiding a whole country over something like this but hey...less tourists for me to put up with on my vacation haha

Maybe the locals do know where the zones are, but I bet a great many Italians visiting also get caught.

As for speeding fines it is up to you as a driver to familiarise yourself with the rules of the country you are visiting
So you need to know the name board is also a speed limit board, when traffic from the right has priority, that you need to give way to bikes, allow buses to pull out from a bus stop and so on.