During a trip to Italy June 18 - June 25 we rented an automobile from AutoEuropa, Siciliy by Car. At the end of August, we received 3 notices that we were being fined 150 euros plus V.A.T. and postage and handling for traffic violations on 6/19, 6/20 and 6/21. The cover letter is in English, but the actual citation is in Italian. We don't have any idea what traffic laws we supposedly broke. We paid tolls whenever they were required, and were never stopped by police to indicate we were in violation of any laws. The rental company has our credit card information. Do you have any advice?

Possibly driving in a restricted zone. That happens a lot and people don't find out about it until a while after (sometimes more than a year)

You might want to repost in the Europe forum.
http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/

Is Sicily by Car the name of the company or just where you rented the car (Sicily)?

Sounds like you drove in a pedestrian only zone (yes, delivery vehicles can use it or someone living there - but not the general pubic. Signs are posted and they send tickets based on photos of everyone going in or out.

Are the locations and dates correct? Unless you can prove you were somewhere else I doubt you can fight it.

but do post on europe.

Have you called AutoEurope, based in Maine,to ask them to clarify all of this?
It may be that you entered restricted zones, ZTLs,as the above poster mentioned. Or perhaps you were caught by speed cameras on the autostrada as I was in Spain. I received a ticket by mail almost a year later.

Cameras for all sorts of violations are ubiquitous in Italy. They will grab you in the ZTL, and they will grab you when you are speeding (esp where speed limits drop at the edge of towns or industrial areas).

I think you need someone to read the materials you have been sent in Italian. In my sad experience, what you have been billed for is the fee for processing the tickets and giving your name and address to the authorities. The tickets themselves are separate and will have to be paid, in all probability, by bank transfers from your bank to theirs. You will almost certainly find the routing numbers on the citations.

Your rental car contract allowed a charge on your credit card if they have to provide your information to the police (typically 30-50€ - read the fine print). Your ticket(s) will come later from the company that the Italian police contracts with to collect fines. They have a year to mail it to you. Is the 150€ the fee from the rental car company (3 tickets x 50€ for providing your info to the police)?

Italy has a lot of traffic cameras. You were probably speeding or crossed into a ZTL.In ZTL zones, only residents are allowed to drive and others with the proper license/permit, not tourists, etc.

The ZTL sign:
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelbl...?destId=359975

http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/road_s..._signs_cr2.htm

I don't think calling AutoEurope (ending in an E) will help. They rented from AutoEuropa (ending in A)/Sicily by Car.

Much the same thing happened to me a couple years ago. I was driving a car rented from Hertz outside of Florence and my GPS took me the wrong way down what I realized (too late) was a one-way street. I was able to turn off after only 50 yards or so and continued my trip without incident.

I assume there must have been a traffic camera around because some time after that a charge for 30 Euro from Hertz showed up on my credit card and several months later a ticket for the equivalent of $175, as I recall, arrived from Florence. I didn't want to be looking over my shoulder on every subsequent trip to Italy, and admittedly I did "do the crime," so I sent off my payment and took some comfort in not having to live in a socialist police state, though I do still enjoy visiting a few of them.

>>>so I sent off my payment and took some comfort in not having to live in a socialist police state

"socialist police state" -- ????

Where do you live that you don't have traffic laws? Or electronic devices that monitor traffic and assist in catching traffic violators?

During the time you were in Italy, the government was distinctly right-wing, not socialist. There are very few Socialist or even left-leaning rulers in Europe today. The presence of traffic cameras reflects a move toward smaller, not larger, government as state payrolls are reduced.

Italian taxpayers and overseas investors have literally billions of dollars to preserve the great artworks and historic monuments of Italy out of the belief that they are of world importance to humanity. Clueless tourists attempting to drive their cars right up to the doorstep of these fragile places became so intolerable and such a threat to the preservation of these places, laws were put in place to keep them from destroying what was left.

Sorry you think that is some kind of evil assault on your personal liberty, and yes, be grateful you live someplace where there is concrete paved over all history so you can drive and consume to your heart's content. And stay there.

Pporter, you can step off the soapbox. I think most people would think flyfish was not really serious about the socialist police state. Just being funny.

i'll have to side with pporter and kybourbon. Socialistic police state?

look around in the US, cameras at almost every intersection.

anyway back to OP, this has happened to me before, and i used Sicily by Car and Hertz. they have nothing to do with it. you most likely parked in a ZLT or over stayed time limit in a parking space (that what i got one for). or as others said here, got caught on camera speeding.

i would contact your credit card co., and check if it was charged already.