can anyone confirm / refute?
Has anyone ever got a ticket through the post for speeding in Italy?
I read on an Italian driving forum that for a while now the Italian police has given up trying to chase cars with Swiss licence plates who get caught by speeding by a speed camera.
Did you trigger the flash light while driving in Italy?
BTW; italians are cool about speeding, rash driving, parking anywhere we feel like but to keep the fear of law and order, sometimes (once in the blue moon) police send ticket of something unexpected... such as over speeding.... bottom line is; we never know when Murphy strikes us
not that I could notice, but then I don't know how long they'd take to arrive... I got flashed in CH just outside a tunnel on the way to Gottard when I still had my UK plates (that was about 4 months back) and I still haven't seen anything on the post... car was already imported and insured here, so I guess they could have traced me?
I had a ticket from speeding in the UK when I was leaving in Guernsey (CI), but the accompanying letter said that they were not going to prosecute...
seems like tickets from speeding cameras don't cross borders... maybe it's too expensive/laborious to chase them?
anyone's experience is welcome
Last week we got a fine in the mail for apparently driving down streets you werent meant to in Florence last July
So who the hell knows
All we did was follow the navigation in the car. So frustrating.
Also this is off topic, but I dont want to start a thread to have my rant so I'll just add it here quickly - we were driving through the Binz area late one night around Christmas, and were behind about 4 other cars. Whoever was in front was rather slow and we didnt go over 50. We're not idiots, and definitely weren't tailgating the guy in front because whats the point..
.. but then a police car behind us pulled us over. First she said it was just a routine check, and took Luke's licence to go.. look at it or whatever.. then when she came back she was asking all questions about where we were from, then said we were tailgating (I'm annoying, whenever Luke even thinks about tailgating I whinge.. there's no way we were) and would receive a fine in the mail.
But not only that, she must have also recorded that he showed his Australian licence instead of his Swiss one to try and.. hide his record or something? It isnt true.. his Australian licence says "Not Valid in Switzerland" on it anyway, so if he did she just would have asked for his Swiss one, but as I said - never happened .
So now the Swiss want to fine him for that, take away his Swiss licence for 3 months, and destroy his Australian one (which is still perfectly valid in Australia?)
Umm.. anyone want to shine some light on.. what the hell?
To the OP, I dont know when you can start thinking youre in the clear! We have only just received the Italian one now, after soo many months. And we live in Switzerland but only just received a 250CHF fine that just says "warning" made out to Luke's old number plate of a car he hasn't driven since November.
Whoo knows
Speeding in Italy? If you were driving from Milan, direction France, in a Ferrari with a friend following in a TVR.....would you expect the police to pull over at 140kph and wave you past?
Only in Italy
Lucy - first things first - they have to provide you a way of paying the ticket otherwise you can ignore it. And you can drive on a foreign licence for a year before chopping it in - talk to your insurance people to see if they can help if it's not a year yet.
not sure about the reference, but it sounds totally plausible... nah, driving from Milan to Venice on a 1.4 Fiesta making a good 160... still, plenty of people flashing me 'cos they want to pass...
Theyve given us 10 days to respond, and Luke's Swiss father who doesnt take shi!t from anyone is on the case! So if he can't work it out nobody can! But I'll let them know about the insurance thing..
Thanks
My understanding is that once you take your licence in and get the Swiss licence, your old one is no longer valid anywhere. I may be wrong, and I'm from Canada, so the rules may be different, but that's the way it was explained to me both from Canadian and Swiss officials (but even they didn't seem to completely understand what I was asking). You may want to verify this if you use the licence in Australia. I would guess driving without a valid licence is a nasty fine there also.
holy hell!!!!
i had EXACTLY the same thing but in Pistoia when we were on holidays...
now i'm wondering if they're making it up!!!
cost me some 250euro or something if i remember rightly
hmmm all of a sudden i'm wondering if it's a scam....
they have a new online system that they give you a login for and you can pay it with credit card - the Italians have wised up to foreign speeders etc. it seems
was it a ZTL ("Zona a Traffico Limitato", equivalent to congestion charge zone)? they take your picture when you enter and if your plates are not on their database of authorized cars (resident / permit holder / permit paying) they automatically issue a fine. Bit like London...
you know it took months to get to us and we didn't know the area - but it could very well have been something like that - thing is you know you have to pay cos the hassle of proving they're wrong is MUCH more expensive than the cost of the fine itself
I see.. I have no idea and yes we should probably find out
All I know is that when Luke got a Swiss licence they put a stamp on the back of his Australian one that says "Not Valid in Switzerland".. I would have thought they would have just taken it if it wasnt valid anywhere else anymore.. or at least said something about it..
But I'll try found out - thanks
Yeahh.. some of our Swiss friends were like "dont pay it, sometimes its a scam", but it sounds like walter knows more about it than they probably do
Ah I dont know. There seem to be an awful lot of fines here that dont make sense to me. I drove in Australia for 5 years and never had any fines that didnt make sense to me like Luke gets here.
If he gets caught speeding, he gets caught speeding - its his own fault and its the same everywhere. But that police lady randomly deciding we were tailgating, then saying we tried to show his Australian licence, and this fine that just says "warning".. ughhhhhhhhhh. And yeah, no point disputing any of it cos it will just end up costing more
the only safe way to check is to ring up the police station of the place where it was issued and ask them to confirm... even though ZTL are usually well signposted , and TOMTOM (if you have one) should warn you about them...
Yeah, we dont have a TOMTOM.. but the navigation thing we do have was pretty good telling us about speed cameras and traffic and everything in Italy - but when we were in Florence we were only driving there for one day and followed her directions the entire time but still have this fine
Oh well. Did take a VERY long time for the fine to arrive though.. certainly werent expecting it errrrr
if you go again check out this website
just today I realized I'm totally effffd....over Easter I went to Italy and drove around Tuscany and beyond. I remember seeing the speed monitoring warnings and the boxes which do not have the usual lens facing towards the car but just facing towards the road and accross it.
Did some searching and found that I've falled victim to this device:
http://www.1stradardetectors.com/new...eed_Traps.html
looks like over the next few months I can expect several speeding tickets...I passes many such boxes and I know I was going well over 130kmh. Will post the totals as I know them
Lessons learned: watch the warnings and the speed in Italy!
There aren't many fixed nor mobile radars set up in Italy, usually one is quite safe - have been highwaying back and forth for the last 30 yrs with no problem, 4 to 5 times a year.
However, I can confirm that once a fine IS issued, it makes its way slooooowly toward Switzerland - this is new since about 5 years, not sure what changed. One used to be able to park anywhere, and just rip apart the fines before going home with no long term consequences, but now you get your fine home about 6 months later, nicely doubled for nominative research and the like.
Moral of the story - watch out.
Did you ever get the Italian tickets? Reason for me asking is that I have violated the restricted traffic area in Rome multiple times.
What happens if you don't pay? Can Italy bring you to court in Switzerland?
What I am seeing is that until now in Italy, they have not bothered to chase you down in CH. It is only if they stop you will you get a fine. This has probably changed as of 26.01.2012 (see link below where IT just joined EUCARIS as of that date).
HOWEVER, as of mid 2013, CH and the EU will fully open a platform of plate registration information to other countries so you can expect at 100% to get a fine as of that date. In the meantime, it seems to be a bit of hit and miss as certain countries join in and start up the system of sharing.
This new system is called EUCARIS. Link: https://www.eucaris.net/
Link in French to some background on the agreement: http://www.petitrenard.ch/?p=4696