In Florence: Pay It, Ignore It, What Do Most American Tourists Do About This??

There are lots of discussions on this same topic
Do a search and you’ll get an earful

AFAIK you will not be arrested if you return to Italy
They will just eventually send it to a collection agency and you’ll have that to deal with

FWIW I’d pay it and chalk it up to live and learn, file under peace of Mind

Just be aware Florence is not the only place with ZTLs, and as seems in your case, "Bus Only" lanes.

If you use the 'Search' bar at the top of the page you will find plenty of discussion on "Traffic fines in Italy"

Answers will range from ," you dd it, pay it, to they really cannot do anything to you so ignore it"

What one chooses to do fepends on how their moral compass is configured

https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&filter=Travel+Forum&query=ZTL+Fine&utf8=%E2%9C%93

Most feel that if you do the deed you gotta do the time.

As noted above this is a commonly recurring complaint, not limited to Italy. Speed cameras everywhere. By no means is this limited to Firenze, most significant cities have ZTL's and such If you are lucky you may receive a few more over time, it seems to take a while to mail the violations!

just be aware that from the words you quote what you have is not a ZTL infraction, rather a fine for a moving violation, probably driving in a bus lane (or possibly other restricted lane).

Without seeing the photo it is difficult to say if you were in a lane reserved for buses, cyclists, ambulances, whatever. But it sounds like you were driving outside the ZTL but in the wrong lane, beyond the solid line.

I'll let you decide how much of a scofflaw or law abider you want to be - other than your giving your whole name and small town, nobody from here is likely to recognize you on the street - but maybe think about the question with the shoe on the other foot...

If somebody came to your town and had made a moving violation would you expect them to go through the process or ignore it?

I will assume for the purpose of discussion that the rental car agency did register the car’s license number with the authorities so you could drive through the ZTL without penalty for 1 hour after picking up the car, and that you did in fact leave the ZTL within the allotted time. However, that permission was not also a license to drive in the restricted bus lanes. They are pretty clearly marked, but maybe you did not understand the signage, or thought you were exempt from that restriction. Unfortunately, either way you are responsible for your mistake.

I agree with Lola and Nigel, that's not a ZTL fine.

You haven't much to be outraged for and you have no grounds to appeal. They have a pic of that car in a bus lane, an officer in person checked that pic and signed your fine. How could a Judge decide you should not to pay? Based on what? Because you could drive in the ZTL? You were not fined for that reason.

The fine hasn't increased to the greatest, you are wrong again. You are paying the administrative and the mailing costs on top of the fine, but it's not because it's late. It's just because finding a foreigner and sending a registered letter abroad costs more. The highest cost for driving in a bus lane is 333 Euro, not 193.

You are entitled to a 30% off the fine if you confess and pay within 5 days from the day you receive the first registered letter. Then you have 55 days to either appeal or pay the 100%. Since you are dead wrong, make your appeal (written in Italian) to the Court of 1st instance, not to the Prefect. The Prefect acts as the Cops Monitoring body and would immediately double your fine; a Judge would just have a laugh and dismiss your appeal for lack of motivations.

You can't be detained for a debt, you are not Oscar Wilde and this isn't the 19th Century. They can't even block you at the borders for administrative sanctions. In short they can only wait for 12 months and then sell your debt to an US based collection agency. What will happen after that depends on you and on the US law about collections agencies.

gives a phone number to call,

Are you sure you were fined in Florence? They should have given also this mail: firenze@myfines.it as explained here: https://poliziamunicipale.comune.fi.it/tourist_help.html

Welcome to the world of the Italian traffic ticket. Rather unfair as well as outrageous, --- It is not unfair or outrageous. It is their system. Just a bit more complicated since you are here and it was there.
Since you have been hanging around this site since '14 I would have assumed that you would have read about this situation. Appears you were in a bus lane and a traffic camera caught you. I surprise you didn't notice the administrative charge that the car rental company put through when they turned your name and address over to the police. If you ignore it, it appears from prior postings that it will go to a US collection agency for harassment and perhaps a ding on your credit report. It is commonly believed that the collection agency cannot get a judgement in a US court for a foreign traffic ticket. So in the end it will be dropped but not before some degree of hassle with letters and phone calls. It is too minor of an issue to be tied to your passport so you can revisit Italy. But I might not use the same car rental agency. It is a pain. Probably should pay it. But no serious problems if you don't. The should be a club for Italian traffic ticket holders. Good luck.

I agree, it is outrageous.

Entitled tourists that don't bother learning the rules of the road or looking at the road signs and then get upset when they are caught driving in a bus lane and feel that they somehow shouldn't have to pay the fine really is outrageous.

To the OP: If you can't bother following the rules at least to the 2nd most honourable thing, admit your mistake and pay the fine.

I avoid these fines by never renting or driving a car in Italy. You either accept this risk as the "cost of renting a vehicle" or you do as I do and never put yourself at risk of a driving violation.

Yeah, we got two cameras tickets from Italy a few years ago. About 3 miles over the speed limit. About 2 miles apart. Luckily my husband reads Italian so as soon as the rental company sent the notice we paid it. It was about €55 each.

Been there, received one, paid it.
Part of the transaction of travel.
NOTE: during our travels we have experienced a lot of goodwill from police of different countries while renting cars. Our favorite story, being given a police escort from the center of Rome to the correct road to help head for the coast. I had a map on the hood of the car, a forlorn look and a police officer pulled over to help. He spoke zero English, but his heart spoke for us. This was in 1990. So in 2017 when I was "zapped" I chalked up the event as being "due".
You are not being discriminated against as the technology seeks all offenders.
Be well.

That sucks! For the amount of money you're looking at I'd probably just blow it off and take my chances if your research shows their only recourse is a collection agency.

^^ would you offer that same advice if OP was ticketed in Indiana?

Many Italian jurisdictions (including the City of Florence) engage international credit collection agencies to collect unpaid fines.

However the collection agency has no legal recourse to have that fine enforced by the courts in the US.

At the same time a traffic fine cannot affect your credit score as a result of a legal settlement in 2015 (see links below)
https://thecreditbureau.com/2016/07/credit-agencies-stop-reporting-unpaid-tickets/
https://www.americanbanker.com/payments/news/credit-bureaus-order-cities-to-stop-reporting-unpaid-tickets

However make sure you know your rights in dealing with credit collection agencies, as many engage in unethical if not illegal practices. Check your credit regularly after you deal with them.
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/fair-debt-collection-practices-act-text

Also a traffic fine is not grounds for denying you entry into the Schengen Area, and no database exists to even detect someone with an unpaid fine at the border. Besides Italian authorities have a hard time expelling undocumented felons with violent crime records, so an unpaid ticket is the last of their worries.

Whether you want to pay or not is entirely your decision based on how guilty you feel for having broken the law, albeit unintentionally.

PS: if you rented from Leasys on via Palazzuolo I am confident that you were caught by the bus lane camera on Via Della Scala going west just past the San Jacopo di Ripoli church at the intersection with via dei Rucellai. Via della Scala is a one way two lane street, with the right lane for buses only while the left lane is for everybody. The camera is on the right side, not even past 50 m. after the church. That bus lane camera is famous for collecting the most bus lane violations in the city, and since it is on the way out from nearly all car rental places in the city center (Borgo Ognissanti street area) I bet many are out of town (country) renters.

Please note: via della Scala, in the section between via Rucellai and Piazzale di Porta a Prato, has two lanes; the right one is reserved to buses and taxis, the left one for everybody. If you drive the right lane you get a fine. As this itinerary is used by many people renting cars at Borgo Ognissanti, it is not difficult to guess where most fines of this kind come out.

(Please note: if you do not reserve a lane to buses, their queue on working days will build along all via della Scala. Residents were tired to breath bus exhaust fumes and they asked for the reserved lane. It was not a trick to get money from tourists.)

Indiana requires due process and the ticket would be enforceable. If the Italian ticket is not enforceable then why pay at such a high price?

requires due process

What makes you think that this requirement is not fulfilled in this case? What's undue in a camera taking a pic of a car breaking the rules and cops mailing a fine?

Jim Parks can appeal by registered letter like locals, he can pay 30% less like locals and has 55 days to decide what to do just like locals. He as been deprived of which rights to make you think this process is not due? A fully bilingual Justice system?

Part of the issue is that there are no uniform standards for photo tickets. In Colorado, for a photo ticket to be enforced the driver must be identified. The ticket is against the driver and not the vehicle. A vehicle cannot break the law. An example of how this works -- When my son was in college, his car was registered in my name. One day he loaned the car to a friend who received a speeding ticket photo in a school zone - fines double. The ticket comes to me as the owner of the vehicle along with a clear picture of the driver. All I had to do was to return the ticket with a picture of my drivers license photo, sign a statement that I was not the driver and did not know the driver. Ticket dismissed. Even if I had known the driver I am not required to identify the driver. I think in most of Europe the ticket violation goes with the vehicle.

Pay it. Chalk it up to a learning experience.

The way laws work in other countries is different than in the US. The burden of proof is on the person operating the vehicle that the evidence is false, not on the law enforcers to prove you were wrong. Common law vs Civil law laws

Pay the ticket. What is your time worth?

The way laws work in other countries is different than in the US. The burden of proof is on the person operating the vehicle that the evidence is false, not on the law enforcers to prove you were wrong. Common law vs Civil law laws.

Sorry, but the burden of proof is totally unrelated here and there is no need to bother the Common Law!

What matters is a concept of the Roman Law called "liability without fault" under administrative and non-criminal subjects.

It's Your car, so you are liable for the things made by those you freely entrusted to drive your car. The cops have already proven that you are wrong, it is obvious: they have a pic of a car under your responsibility breaking the law. It wasn't you behind the wheel? Sue the driver or, next time, trust only law-abiding people.

Of course if a driver kills someone the criminal liability falls on the driver and not on the owner of the car.

The liability without fault is there precisely to prevent people like Frank from avoiding a deserved fine the way he did.

New York City has created more bus lanes every year. There are warnings of photo enforcement. It's hard to overlook the signage, on poles and on the pavement. The bus lanes have improved bus travel times. In NYC, a camera ticket (red lights, mostly) is sent to the registered owner of the car, who has the obligation. (You will be getting a fee on your credit card for the car rental company's administrative work to provide your identity to the police.)

Perhaps it's illuminating to consider that NYC (especially in Queens and Staten Island) has had considerable citizen opposition to speed cameras in school zones. Evidently the right to drive as you please negates safety for school children.

Traffic laws are enforced by camera without the intervention of an officer also in many US jurisdictions.

In California for example many traffic light violations are enforced by a camera which takes a photo of your license plate. The only requirement is that the photo must clearly show the face of the driver.

Because of this requirement many tickets are often dismissed because of gender mismatches between the gender of the driver and the registered owner, or simply because the face of the driver is not clear enough. Nevertheless my brother-in-law got caught by one at a traffic light in the SF Bay Area a couple of years ago, and paid it.

As you can see below. Traffic cameras are becoming common in North America as well, although I don't think they are used for speed violations, at least in California, and of course we have no ZTL's and bus lanes are very limited to some large cities (San Francisco has a bunch for sure).
https://www.photoenforced.com/

Let's face it. These are easy revenue streams for local governments. The City of Florence collects almost 40 million Euro a year in traffic tickets (mostly ZTL and Speed tickets enforced by camera), about 125 euro a year for each adult resident, second only to Milan on a per capita basis. Since most tickets are given to non residents (locals are more likely to know where the cameras are), that is a tax on people who don't vote since they live elsewhere. It doesn't get better than that for local politicians.

....The liability without fault is there precisely to prevent people like Frank from avoiding a deserved fine the way he did.... That is a very interesting statement and probably is the heart of the difference. The statement suggests that one should be responsible for the behavior/actions of a total stranger. I deserve a fine because a stranger violated a speed zone? That is just not going to happen under US laws. US Laws are very strong on personal liability of the individual. Under US laws it is difficult to hold parents responsible for the action of their children. Whether that is right or wrong is beside the point. The US laws are based on, out growth of, English common law with, of course, many modifications via statutes and court rules. We have various legal codes that have evolved from different basis and are acceptable to the various cultures that the laws evolved with. Classic example was the trial of the Am student exchange student. In the US the prosecutor only gets one bite at the apple. Once she was acquitted, he was done. There is no appeal of an acquittal.

Frank. I presume the trial of the Am exchange student is the one of Amanda Knox, a case which I followed closely (even helped translate the court decision for various US papers). It was an outrageous blunder by the prosecutors and still today I'm not sure if they tried to convict two innocent 'bystanders' maliciously or if they were actually convinced in good faith of their guilt.

Nevertheless the principle of 'double jeopardy' exists in the Italian judicial system as well. The difference is that the Italian system considers the first trials and the two level of appeals as been all part of the same trial, if you will they are considered only as separate stages of the same trial, and both the defense and the prosecution has the right to appeal the sentence to the higher courts.

However after the first level of trial and two levels of appeals are exhausted (one to the Court of Appeals and the second to the Supreme Court of Cassation), in other words all stages of the trial are ended, the 'double jeopardy' kicks in also in the Italian system. Therefore Amanda Knox or Raffaele Sollecito can no longer be tried for the same crime, in observance of the principle of 'double jeopardy'.

Regarding the traffic tickets however, the principles are similar in the two countries. If I get a photo enforced ticket in California, I can dispute it and say someone else was driving the car. In Italy I believe they have the same principle. The owner is presumed to be the violator, but if someone else was driving, the owner can dispute the ticket by providing evidence of who was actually operating the vehicle at the time of the infraction. That is why it is not the rental car company (owner of the vehicle) which will pay the fine, but the renter. The rental car company simply provided evidence to the authorities that at the time of the violation the vehicle was rented to the OP. If you are the owner of the vehicle, and you lent your car to a friend, you will simply have to provide evidence that it was not you at the wheel, but your friend.

Do the right thing and pay it.

I deserve a fine because a stranger violated a speed zone?

A total stranger that used your car without your consent is called a thief. This is not the case. You deserved a fine because someone you freely entrusted with an asset of yours broke the law.

Cars are not wild animals, they have an owner who is responsible for what third parties do by mutual agreement with his/her property. Something both you and your son avoided. You did not say: "This is my son's friend, fine him".

There is no appeal of an acquittal.

What's the connection with individuals and the lack of responsibility about one's assets?

Anyway I prefer the prohibition of "reformatio in peius" in conjunction with the appeal on acquittal. To avoid ridiculous outcomes as the OJ Simpson trial, Casey Anthony etc. etc.

Since the defendant can't submit new evidence in your system, it seems to me that you have no appeal on conviction, either. It seems more similar to what our Cassation Court makes, a review of the trial and not a new trial. I guess you can Blame Luther and his predestination doctrine, or the German tribes and their trials by ordeal.

you will simply have to provide evidence that it was not you at the wheel, but your friend.

No, that's not enough. When the driver was not identified by a cop at the time of the offence, to avoid a financial penalty , the car owner must demonstrate that:

• he/she was not at the wheel
• the car was used by someone else against the owner's will.

This is why I would never drive in Italy again.

....The difference is that the Italian system considers the first trials and the two level of appeals as been all part of the same trial,..... That is my exact point. We have two different systems. Or simply put --- different ways of doing business. Unfortunately many American tourist (to a degree, self include) tend to think their system should apply because that is what we are comfortable with and understand. To rotate back to the original question, in the US system most states require the traffic authorities to ID the violator and not just the vehicle owner. In Italy it appears that identifying the owner of the vehicle is sufficient. (The renter is the owner at the moment) Two different systems and two different approaches.

Maybe because in Italy all traffic fines are ‘administrative’ fines (like parking tickets) even if they are moving violations. If you think about it even in the US the car owner is responsible for the parking violation, even though the car may have been parked illegally by someone other than the owner.

For what could have been just another "I've been done in by the Italian police!" thread, it has instead provided by some other posters some interesting insights into the Italian judicial system. Thank you!

since the offence appears to be in July 2021, and the OP just received a registered letter and posted here 3 days ago, presumably the discount would apply if he replied immediately.

Since Jim Parks doesn't appear to be entering into any of this discussion either he has done that or has decided not to and we won't hear any more about it.

So Dario if you so believe the owner of the car is responsible for anyone's actions driving it, how come you don't believe the rental car company then based on your logic would be responsible for the tickets of the drivers? Your logic won't hold true here will it?

Mike.
Rental car companies have lobbyists.
They managed to have exceptions for themselves in the law.
So they are never responsible for the actions of renters using their cars.
In America we are luckier. We don’t have lobbyists getting favors from lawmakers for their constituents.

“In America we are luckier. We don’t have lobbyists getting favors from lawmakers for their constituents.”
Roberto, excellent. Very droll.