Rome Traffic Violation - Received email from Rental Agency

Welcome

If you haven’t received the actual violation notices by now, chances are you won’t

Regardless, these possible violations will not prevent you from renting a car in Rome
Yes you can be charged 5 times for same violation- they don’t use officers writing tickets, they use cameras

Is it because I haven't received an official notice - I can then assume I don't have any pending adverse action agaist me in their system that would prevent me?

Is it only after I receive that notice of violation - that I would be precluded from renting a vehicle?

I just don't want to show up in Italy - with my 94yo elderly father and get denied a car rental at the airport because of this crazy situation.

Is there any way of fimding out if there are pending violations against me, regardless if I haven't received anything?

Note - I havent moved in 26 yr so no chance I missed something.

This is stressful:-(

You don't have to stress about anything. You have not received any ticket. Besides, even if you receive it and you refuse to pay, they are not going to prevent you from renting a car or entering the country. The most the City can do is assign the debt to a collection agency, which most Cities in Italy don't do.

Half of the tickets go unpaid even by Italians. In your case they are unlikely to send you the ticket now after over a year, although legally they have 365 days from the time the rental company communicated your name to the authorities.

Wait until you actually receive something in the mail from the City of Rome. At this point you have not been issued any citation. If your rental agency has in fact sent your information to the City of Rome, then you may have been issued a citation within the Rome system, but you have not been notified. If you are headed back to Rome and get stopped while driving, then those past citations may be in the city system and you would be required to pay.

If you are not driving in Rome again, the odds are for you to just wait for something in the mail from Rome. I do not know if the rental company was charged since technically it was their car or if the city let's them off the hook if they supply your information. Whatever you do, do not pay the rental agency. It has been known that independent rental agencies even with a name brand company have tried to request payments from US renters as a way to generate additional revenue when the jurisdiction has actually forgave the citation to the agency. It is just like a ticket in the US. You need to see the camera photos, date and time of the photos to be sure this was actually your rental.

Without any documentation, why would you pay anyone?

Car rental companies will charge you a fee for forwarding your info to the authorities
That is perfectly legit
I have never heard of a rental agency trying to collect the actual violation fees although I suppose some scammy agency would try that

If you deal with only reputable agencies you have nothing to worry about

And Roberto can clarify but I don’t think being stopped by y in Rome for a traffic violation is a thing-that’s what cameras are for.

You are stressing over nothing
I’ll suggest that before you drive in Italy again brush up on driving in Italy so you’ll know what not to do and you’ll recognize bus lanes, for example

If I didn't need to rent another vehicle upin my arrival - I would just wait it out w/o stressing. I had read somewhere that rental agencies have access to driver records/citations and if they are unpaid would refuse issuing me a rental. If I havent received anything - I would think there is nothing flagged against my drivers license - but that would only be logical;-)lol

However, I don't have confidence because the whole Italian system seems convoluted & backwards - based on past dealings with estate successions... I guess I would not be so concerned - if not taking my 94yo father back to Italy where his family still resides - and am terrified at the thought we will be "stuck" in Rome at the airport. He is too frail for public transportation.

Is there was a way to check my drivers license status standing in advance?

Where are you reading these things?

Please read Roberto’s post above again
Roberto is a native of Florence who rents cars in Italy every year
He knows his stuff

Follow Roberto's advice. He is the most knowledgeable on this site. The rest is marginal at best and mostly hearsay. Personally I would not worry about it until you get something more official. The city will ask the rental company for name and address of the renter during the time of the violation. Most rental companies will charge an administrative fee to your credit card for each inquiry. If they charged you 5 times it is because your vehicle was recorded five different times by the camera. That is the way it works. Once they have your name and address, it is the city's decision to forward a ticket or two to you. They may decide not to and the matter is closed.

Right now, I would put it on the back burner and be careful.

The rental car company is not responsible for the payment of vehicle code violations committed by the renter. This has been clarified with Law Decree 212 of 2021 converted into Law 167 of 9 November 2021. The only responsibility on the part of the rental agency is to communicate to the authorities within 60 days from the date of notification of the violation to the rental company, the name and address of the renter driving the vehicle at the time of the infraction.

Therefore, and let’s make this clear for posterity, the rental car company, once has communicated the name of the renter within 60 days, is not liable for the payment of the fine and could not care less whether the renter pays the fine or not.

If the City of Roma Capitale decides to send you the ticket at your address in the US, and you still don’t pay, the rental agency is still NOT liable for the payment. In that case the City of Roma Capitale may assign the debt to a collection agency which might try to collect, although not necessarily successfully since they can’t really take you to court for a ticket issued by a foreign government entity. The other possibility is that if you get pulled over by the Municipal Police in Rome, they might check their records to see if you have any unpaid fines and ask you to pay. I personally doubt even that happens, since in the notoriously dysfunctional City of Roma Capitale the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.

But to me the biggest issue here is having someone getting fined five different times for driving on 5 separate bus lanes presumably on a period of time that is just a few days. I don’t know if that is careless disregard of the law, or vision impairment, or driving under the influence, or what. Bus lanes are generally well signaled, so it can’t be just being momentarily distracted (which shouldn’t happen while driving anyhow).

The 5 infractions all occurred within a period of about 15-20 min - and the same bus lane... because we kept being directed to a parking garage by our GPS that did not appear to exist - so we would loop around and clearly were unaware we kept ending up in a bus lane until I got the email with the infraction info from the rental car company. If anyone has ever driven in Rome city center - it is shear chaos, the italian drivers are on the offense & impatient, horns blaring and people everywhere. Turns out the garage was completely underground - and the entrance signage minimal like an American speed limit size... We were completely miffed every time it said we arrived abd saw nothing but a square? We would slow down and cars would start blaring their horns accompanied by various angy drivers hand gestures! Although no excuse - as I should have researched the 'garage' in advance - thats how it occured; I never would have conceived it was entirely underground in a square. I've driven in italy at least 6 differant times - Rome City Center this was my first and last... an absolute harrowing overstimulating experience and not for the average driver. Drivers beware

At any rate - I am entirely willing to pay the fine if its been issued to me. However my issue is can it have been issued and pending without providing me notice? If so - can it prevent me from renting a car? Is there a way to find out before I show up at the car rental counter at the Italian airport? Is there somewhere I can check my driving records in advance to see if these infractions exist against me?? Something like a registry or the police department?

GPS directions should not prevail over road signage. A GPS navigator is not always correct. Sometimes signage changes and/or the navigator is not updated. A GPS can be wrong and send you on a one way street against the flow of traffic and cause a fatal head on collision. And yes, if you go around the block 5 times and enter on a bus lane 5 times, the camera takes a photo each time you go around and the fine is automatically issued each time.

There is nothing that will prevent you from being able to rent a car, even if you use the same rental car agency. The rental car agency will not know and will not care to know whether you have received the fine or whether you paid or not, because once the City has received the driver’s data from the agency they will not contact the agency again.

I would surmise - as in the US, rental agencies overseas somehow validate a foreign drivers license? Ensuring through a 'record check' not only is the foreign license current - but ensure it has not been revoked or has some pending open legal action against the driver?

I would surmise - as in the US, rental agencies overseas somehow validate a foreign drivers license? Ensuring through a 'record check' not only is the foreign license current - but ensure it has not been revoked or has some pending open legal action against the driver?

This is an incorrect assumption, especially in the US. Having worked for two different rental car companies a long time ago in management, there is no validation of any infractions or citations when renting a car. If you present a valid license in your name, the rental agency has no insight into 50 state vehicle departments of motor vehicles. If your license has been revoked, it will not be in your possession any longer. If the license is fake, that might be a different issue. You could have 50 unpaid speeding tickets and if you have not had your licensed revoked, no rental agency would know.

in Italy there are over 8,000 Comuni (municipalities), all with a municipal police force that issues fines daily. There are also national police forces like Carabinieri and Polizia di Stato which issue tickets daily, as well as Local Police forces under the 110 Provinces. Since there isn’t a national database where all these ticket records are recorded, the rental agency would need to check each individually. It doesn’t happen. The rental agency takes your US drivers’ license, makes a copy or records the data in a computer, and that’s it. They don’t even check if you have an IDP. They don’t even care if you are a terrorist or a mafioso criminal (all of which are able to rent cars).