Traffic Violation Florence

A few years ago, we received a speeding ticket passed on to us from our car rental company for speeding on a highway outside Marseilles. Did your ticket come from the rental car company? I would reach out to them for clarification before paying anything.

Car rental agencies do not issue traffic tickets but they do charge you when they have to turn your info in to the police.
That is usually the first indication that a ticket is on its way

Sounds like you have several violations
-driving in bus lane, entering ZTLs, etc

This topic comes up occasionally

https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&date_range=2y&filter=Travel+Forum&query=Traffic+violations+

Where I live, October was 9 months ago. It's not unusual for tickets to take that long to arrive. And if DHL delivered the envelope, then the delivery date would be available to the sender.

Looks like you were caught probably driving in a bus lane on the first count, and driving in a ZTL on the other 2. Do you pay traffic fines that you get at home? Then why not also pay those gotten when abroad? Up to you whether you want to be a scofflaw or not. Yours is not an unusual situation. Many foreign drivers who haven't learned the traffic laws in Italy make the same mistakes.

The traffic camera got you -- more than once. We have not had this discussion for awhile but Italy is fairly aggressive in the collection of fines. If it goes unpaid and previous patterns are followed, it will be turned over to a US collection agency. Common understanding is that the collection agency cannot get a judgement against you BUT -- they can list it on your credit report and it can be a hassle to resolve. Some will say, pay it and treat it as a learning experience, and other will say ignore it. It is pain -- Good luck.

This is one reason that I would never rent a car to drive in Italy again.
I drove my POV back when I was stationed with the Army in Germany, but things are different now.

I got a ticket for driving into a ZTL in Florence in September 2001. The ticket arrived from the local government, not from the rental agency, about 11 months after the infraction. After much debate, I ended up doing nothing. I've rented cars in Italy more than a dozen times since then. However, that's only my personal experience, and this was also many years ago, so who knows.. Do you live near an Italian consulate by any chance?

Hi René,

I hope it all resolves to your satisfaction, whatever response you decide to do or not do. I do have a couple of questions, if you’d be willing to share:

1) Whatever happened with your previous situation in Spain? Did you take your friend’s recommendation to ignore it? Did you get any notice afterwards from any collection agency in the USA? Were there ever follow-ups from anybody, and when did they stop coming?

2) As mentioned by ChristineH above, once the authorities in Florence determine that a car identified on a traffic cam belongs to a rental company, they contact that company to determine who was renting at the time. The rental company passes on the name and contact information of their customer, and then charges the customer for the time it takes to research and forward those details to the authorities. Did you receive any additional charge from your rental company, sometime between last October and now?

1 b lane incursion and two ZTL incursions, it seems. The minimum fine is 83€ so it appears about right. Is the sender the Polizia Municipale di Firenze or just the rental agency notifying you they communicated your name to the authorities? From the description you give it appears it’s the former.

The City of Florence is one jurisdiction that assigns unpaid fines to a Credit Collection agency part of an international network. So if you don’t pay, you will likely be contacted by a credit collection agency in the future. They will likely ask amounts that are 5 to over 10 times the fine.

Thanks so much for all your thoughtful responses to my inquire.
Great and useful help. I will follow Roberto’s advice and wait for a contact by a credit agency and if that’s the case send them a Cease or Desist letter.

Roberto, I searched for the Cease or Desist letter in this forum but without success.
Could it be possible to give me a link to get it?
I may never need it but just in case I am contacted by the collection agency I’ll be prepared.

Thaks in advance and once again thanks to all.

René Reyes

Why not just pay the fine?
Would you ignore a ticket in your own country and just refuse to pay?

I don’t think Roberto is advising you to not pay the fine as that would be against forum guidelines

The document doesn’t look like what you’d see in the US because it is from Italy

Why not pay the fine and get it over with, and not have it on your conscience forever.
What would you do in your hometown?

But beware that if they tag your credit report, it will take a lot of effort to remove it. That is the great threat (and the gamble) especially if you are planning a major financial move in the near future.

A recent poster figured out how to pay the darn thing
.https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/ztl-violations

Why not just pay the fine?

I agree with this.

Just consider it one of the potential costs of renting vehicles in Europe...

Sounds like your making a habit of violating local laws and not taking responsibility for your actions.

There is no such a thing as a fine for going 38 km/h on a 35 km/h zone. Speed limits in Italy are multiples of 10 (30, 40, 50, etc.) and the fine is triggered when driving over 5% of the speed limit or 5 km/h, whichever is greater. So if the speed limit is 50 km/h the fine is triggered at 56 km/h or more. If the speed limit is 130 km/h the fine is triggered at 137 km/h or more.

Whether you decide to pay or not is entirely your decision. If you don’t pay, the consequence is that you may be contacted by a credit collection agency in the future, depending on whether the Italian authority decides to assign the debt to a collection agency or not. Obviously the Credit Collection agency will try to extort an amount much larger than the fine.

The Cease and Desist letter is an instrument contemplated by the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to stop credit collection agencies from contacting a debtor, it has nothing to do with letters going to the Italian authorities. You can Google it and find plenty of information, and even templates online. That of course is a step one considers only after being contacted by collection agencies, and for any type of debt.

Once it goes to a collection agency, it affects your credit and even if you do send the agency a cease and desist letter, most of the damage will already have been done. You can't send it to the Firenze institution because US law has no validity in Italy and they can legally ignore it.

This happened to me in England. I was received a ticket from the car rental agency about 5-6 months after I got back, which they got from the city of Plymouth. The ticket was for driving in a bus lane. My defense is that it was raining, I'd never been in that area before, and I was only in it for about 30 seconds. However, my defense doesn't matter because I still violated the existing traffic law.

I agree with the others. Pay the fine. You rented a car and you violated a traffic law. You now owe them money. You might want to look at Wise for purposes of sending money overseas. It's easy and cheaper than wiring money. I used them recently to send money to a tour guide in Romania for a deposit. I think I paid around $1.75 to send €364.

Always pay your fines.

And I agree with everything Mardee just said with a tiny exception.

I believe it will not ding your credit score.

https://www.consumerreports.org/credit-scores-reports/credit-score-myths-what-hurts-you-what-doesnt/

Above is a consumer reports piece that talks about US traffic fines. I believe it also true for foreign fines.

In any case, paying your fines is the right thing to do.

Happy travels.

It amazes me when people get a ticket/fine and ask if they should pay it or ignore it. Just be honest and do the right thing. We got a ticket last year in Varenna (Lake Como) when the parking garage was full and the attendant told us to park along the side of the road and we would be fine. When we returned, every car parked on that road had a ticket. I immediately paid it online while my husband was driving following the instructions on the website that was on the ticket. By paying for it right away, it was around $28. We felt like it was a set up being told to park there, but we felt good we did the right thing and paid for it.