Well, you might get away with it. Then again, you might not.
Shortly after they returned from their vacation in Martinique, a Caribbean island in the Lower Antilles, Alison and Christopher Sperlongo received a surprising piece of mail. The document was in French, and the Florida-based couple had to call upon a French-speaking Canadian friend to translate it for them. It turns out they owed $50 USD for driving 27 kilometers over the speed limit while exploring the French-owned island.
“I didn’t even hesitate to pay it,” Alison Sperlongo says. “We watch Locked Up Abroad.” Although the National Geographic show, which features travelers’ harrowing accounts of being arrested in foreign countries, tends to deal with more serious law-breaking (e.g., drug smuggling), the Sperlongos are adamant that any risk of trouble abroad simply isn’t worth the rather small fine.
In fact, when it comes to speeding violations (and parking tickets) in foreign countries, many travelers are quick to pay up for fear of what could happen if they don’t.
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Fine Print and Added Fees
When you rent a car, there’s typically a lot of paperwork and fine print. You sign at the dotted line and essentially take responsibility for whatever happens while you are behind the wheel of the borrowed vehicle.
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For Campbell Levy, a Colorado-based publicist, paying extra on top of a traffic violation is unacceptable. “Never pay the rental car company,” says Levy, who fought tooth and nail to pay only for the speeding violation in Canada and not the car rental company’s bill with its added-on fees.
But Campbell was fortunate in that he received a speeding ticket in the mail after his trip, and although he coughed up the money, he still ended up receiving a “sketch bill” from the rental car company. Refusing to pay twice for a single violation, Levy called the company and explained that he had already taken care of the fine. It was a hassle, but he’d do it again to avoid the bogus fees.
While traveling in the U.K. a few years ago, Geoff Vincent found out he had been caught speeding when he was charged an additional $75 from the rental car company. They called it an “administrative fee,” and Vincent, who never actually saw the speeding ticket, didn’t have a chance to push back against the fees. But at least he didn’t have to worry about his driving record being marred: “I guess the police didn’t bother pursuing it as I lived out of the country,” says Vincent.
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Speeding in Another Language
For some travelers, it would all just be a lot easier if all rental car companies took ownership of the violation, charging the renter’s card on file rather than attempting to contact the driver directly.
Otherwise, it can be downright confusing. Sarah Pachelli’s speeding violation in Italy cost her a rental in Arizona months after her Italy trip. The New York-based chef and nutritional counselor didn’t know she was speeding at the time, but the notification Pachelli received in the mail once back in New York informed her that a camera had taken notice, and now, she had to pay a fee.
“It was so difficult to figure out how to pay and the rental car company wasn’t helpful at all,” says Pachelli, who discovered the hard way that she had missed a step during the Arizona trip when she was informed her account was on hold due to not paying the fine in Italy.
Charlotte Maiorana’s experience with a parking ticket in Italy was also head-scratching, though in the Staten Island editor’s case, the confusion was due to the fact that Maiorana doesn’t believe she did anything wrong. “I’m pretty fluent [in Italian] and am confident in my parking,” she says, initially hoping for evidence of the parking violation. That never transpired but a letter from a lawyer in Italy did and so Maiorana went ahead and paid the ticket.
To Pay or Not to Pay
Not everyone in violation of traffic laws overseas gets to make the decision.
Following a recent two-week trip to France, Lauren Huber, who works in commercial real estate outside of New York City, was informed via email that she’d been charged for a speeding violation while driving her rental in the South of France. There was nothing for her to do; the rental car company, Sixt, had taken it upon themselves to charge her credit card on file for the violation: ”Dear Sir or Madam, Please find attached the invoice for the processing fee regarding your traffic violation. Kind regards, Your Sixt Customer Service,” read the correspondence shared with Fodor’s.
In addition to having her card on file charged for the traffic violation itself, Huber was also charged an administrative fee, per Sixt’s “general terms and conditions.”
Huber’s experience is pretty typical. Since rental car companies have all the relevant information, they often handle the fine on their end, taking a piece of the pie as their payment for essentially being the middleman.
In Huber’s case, whether or not she was totally clear that signing the rental car contract included a section on the company’s handling of any potential traffic violations along with an administrative fee, is beside the point. If it’s in the contract, there’s not much you can do after the fact.
Huber says she was surprised by the email—“I remember there being a flash on the highway and thinking there was a speeding camera there, but I don’t remember going faster than everyone else”—but she simply accepted her fate. Haggling over Sixt’s administrative fees wasn’t worth the time or effort to Huber, who might have saved a few euros if she’d been able to pay for the ticket directly.
Still, some countries tend to send notice violations and a request for payment directly to the person charged with a traffic violation. Thanks to traffic cameras, the chances of getting caught are high. In the event that you get a ticket and choose not to pay, well, it’s up to you to decide if that’s a risk you’re willing to take.