In 2024, we got a speeding ticket leaving Verona. didn’t know about it till the bill came one year later. We paid it. Now in 2026 we got a letter saying there was some information missing in the accompanying form. We are threatened with getting 3 points on a California license (how?).
Has anyone had a similar experience, and how likely is it we would run into problems at an Italian car rental place? Any way to find that out in advance?
Ticket was issued by Commune di Bagnolo Po. Centro Polesina
thanks so much for any guidance-
Posted by
Nashville, TN
1250 posts
If the ticket hasn’t been paid because of the mistake, then take the steps to pay it. It’s not worth dealing with issues if you try to go back to Italy in the future. They can’t do anything to your CA license, but they can cause you issues abroad.
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
17535 posts
The 3 points you are referring to relate to Italian driver’s license holders. Basically Italians have 20 points to start with. For every infraction a varying number of points are deducted from their balance, once they run out of their 20 points and end up with zero points left in their balance the holder must be subject to a driver’s test again, and once they pass they test, they get back the 20 points to start the process again. There is also a suspension for a short period of tile for certain infractions.
Now, in the case of speed limit violations in Italy, exceeding the speed limit by over 10 km/h but no more than 40 km/h happens to entail the loss of 3 points, and that is what your letter might refer to. It is obviously not applicable to you, because nobody will communicate anything to the California DMV, and in California we get points we are not deducted points.
If you didn’t pay the fine, the only risk would be that the agency issuing the ticket, in your case the Municipality (Comune or Municipio) of Bagnolo di Po, might assign that debt to a credit collection agency part of an international collection network (many Italian municipalities do so with drivers residing abroad) and a credit collection agency in the US, part of the same network, would try to collect that debt from you (obviously for a much greater amount since credit collection agencies are legalized scammers in the business of making as much money as possible from the few whom they can collect from). The collection agency in that case has little legal recourse in the US, since they could not enforce those debts arising from foreign fines in U.S. courts, however they might try to report the debt to the Credit Bureaus (like Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) and affect your FICO Credit score, at which point you would need to dispute it somehow. In your case, since you paid the fine, if that happened, you would simply provide the proof of payment to the collection agency (if they ever contacted you).
If you want you can send me a PDF copy of the letter you received to my personal email I provided via Private Message, so that I can figure out what it is exactly.