Electronic Traffic Ticket Over 2 Years and 3 Months Old

Posted by cintoman on 09/28/26 10:09 PM

Hey Everyone,

New user here and I'm glad to have found this Forum.

My family and I were in Italy back in June of 2024, where we rented a car and I did all of the driving all over Italy for nearly 2 weeks. I've driven in Europe many times (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland), so I'm aware of the traffic cameras, ZTL areas, and traffic signage and general driving in Europe. However, it was my first time driving in Italy. I thought I did pretty good.

That is until I got home today and received a non-registered letter in a plain white envelope with a clear window for my address. Upon opening the letter, it was a notice of a speeding traffic violation. The violation happened over 2 years and 3 months ago. So I would've thought there was a statute of limitations on how long the government had to notify me of any offense. In doing some searching, I've read that there's a statute of limitations of five years for traffic fines. However, there are specific dates that would need to be met by these Italian government agencies as well as my car rental company.

To start, I have never received any initial notification, from neither the car rental agency nor the Italian government. Today was the first notification I received, again, non-registered mail.

So I'm wondering whether this is still valid and whether I should still need to pay this, so as to not escalate further and add additional costs to the fine. I am eventually planning on returning to Italy again in several years and plan to drive there again.

Here's the details of the letter I received:

Came from:
Comun Di Somma Vesuviana
Comando di Plizia Municipale
Via San Giovanni De Matha, 43
80049 - Somma Vesuviana (NA)

Payment Notice For Violations Of The Italian Traffic Code

No of the Form: SM/24321106260 - 20240114974/2024
Date adn Time of the Infringement: 13-06-2024 09:55:00
Date and Time Validation: 17-07-2024 11:11:00
Vehicle Make and Type: CAR
Plate number: (the number WAS the plate for my rental car...so it was me).

Nature of the Infringement: Art. 142.7: Driving the vehicle at a speed of 99 kph, thus exceeding of not more than 10 Kph the speed limit of 90 Kph for that road stretch and that vehicle category (tolerance of 5% already applied with a minimum of 5 km/h for a speed <= 100 Km/h)

Place of offence: S.S. 268 Del Vesuvio dal km 11+214 circa fino al al km 10+333 dir. Napoli - della lunghezza di metri 875,6

Offender: My name and US residental address.

It continues by stating the reason they couldn't immediately notify me:
It was not possible to immediately notify the above-mentioned violation due to: Immediate contestation is exempted pursuant to Article 201, paragraph 1-bis, letter f) of the Highway COde, as the speed detection was carried out by means of a fixed, approved device operating in automatic mode with the presence of traffic police officers, on a road section designated by Prefectural Decree of Naples, Protocol No. 0161292 of 14/06/2018.

The fine is for 75.85 Euros if paid within 5 days of receipt of this notice. Or 88.45 Euros from 6 days to 60 days.

So my question is whether the statute of limitations has expired since they haven't notified me within the initial 90 or so days after they receive notice from the car rental agency that provided my name. Or whether the above "not possible to immediately notify" paragraph renders any deadline invalid. And they are still in their timeframe to collect the fine from me.

Any thoughts from anyone that experienced something like this?

Thank you everyone,
Cintoman

Posted by Roberto da Firenze ⚜

San Francisco Bay Area (USA)

09/29/26 05:25 AM

18247 posts

From the time of violation the authority issuing the fine has 90 days to notify the owner of the vehicle (the rental agency).
From the time the owner (rental agency) has received the notification, they have 60 days to communicate to the authorities the name and address of the renter who was renting the vehicle at the time of violation.
From the time the authorities have received notification of the actual renter from the rental agency, the authorities have 90 days to notify the renter of the violation, if the renter resides in Italy, or 360 days if the renter resides outside of Italy.
Given the above timeline, if this is your first time receiving the notification, the authorities are clearly way past the deadline to notify you, as at the latest they should have notified you within 17 months of the violation. If they sent you this now, in 2026, it means there are morons working at the Polizia Municipale of Somma Vesuviana, who think they can get away with it and still collect.
If you presented a recourse to the Peace Judge, this violation would be dismissed as they sent it beyond the legal time. Doing so from abroad would probably be cumbersome.
You can probably ignore it, however there is the possibility that the local authorities might assign this debt to a collection agency part of an international network. So in the future you might get contacted by a collection agency in the US, part of that network, that tries to collect that amount (actually a much larger amount). If that happens they don’t stand a chance to collect that amount or to have it enforced it in a U.S. Court. However they might try to pressure you, and maybe even report that debt to a credit bureau. You can get the collectors off your back easily by sending a “cease or desist” letter, in which you also state you dispute the debt. But if it reaches that point, you need to monitor your credit and if necessary dispute the record with the credit bureau (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion).
If you decide to ignore it, just wait. Not all Italian cities use collection agencies. If Somma Vesuciana does, come back and let us know.