My husband and I will be traveling to Tuscany and Umbria in early May. Here in the US we have a disabled parking placard.
A. Is this recognized in Italy
B. If not how do I apply for something comparable in Italy?
C. Can I park within the “zoned area”?
D. If not, does anyone you have any suggestions?
Thank you!
A. Possibly, but each municipality will have its own procedure to give you one. Having a placard on the rear view mirror serves little purpose since the restricted traffic zones in the town centers (ZTL or Zona Traffico Limitato) are enforced by camera only, which takes photo of the license plate. Therefore the license plate number must be registered in the individual City White List, on the respective cities' portal (I don't think there is a national database). If a plate number is not registered in the white list as "authorized" the fine is automatically issued by the system. There is no human interaction with a police officer to which you can show a placard.
B. Each municipality will have its procedure, and it is generally available online. Unfortunately I don't think there is a national database, therefore you would need to do so for each after you know the license plate number of the car you rent.
C. Yes you can enter the restricted ZTL and park in designated handicapped stalls in the restricted zone, but only after the license plate number has been authorized in the respective City White List, in the City Portal. That can be done also in person at the Municipal Police of each city. As I said the process is enforced by cameras, and cameras can only see your license plate, not the placard hanging on the rearview mirror.
D. Besides what specified above, the other options is park outside the city centers at any of the parking lots and rely on taxicabs, where available. But I don't know about your level of mobility. Italian historical city centers are ancient, built long before cars were invented. Besides traffic restrictions in the historical cores, there are also streets that are so narrow, or even involve stairs, which would not be accessible even by cars authorized to travel inside. In some cases walking is the only option.
There is an EU disabled parking permit, but you need to be an EU resident to apply.
We have a UK disabled parking permit but I'm afraid we have resigned urselves to finding parking and paying for it when we are out of the UK in the EU,
We try to book accommodation that has parking.
Contact the Italian equivalent of the AAA and see if they can help you
Below is an article in a top law firm website. The article is about one month old (in Italian, but you can use Google Translate to convert in the language of your choice).
A European wide system exists but few local jurisdictions in Italy have adhered to it yet. So the only way is to go to individual websites to apply. Even if obtained outside the EU it would probably be recognized. As I said the biggest issue is that access to ZTL is not controlled by humans but by cameras (and soon drones, as it has being experimented in some EU States) so having the license plate registered in the White List is essential to avoid being fined for unauthorized access.
I just want to thank all of you for your extremely helpful replies! It gives me a lot of perspective in terms of how to plan our trip.
