In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[quote=Adriano;116680]Hi all!
I have just received a fine in the post from the Municipalty of Pisa, for the ofence of "circulating in restricted trafic zone withouth authorisation" They have an electronic picture of my hire car and want to fine me Euro 115.00 for the pleasure. But this was 9/10 months ago - can they really do this legally after all this time?
Would welcome thoughts and views. Their letter to me should have been signed for was not...so can I claim not to know?
Ciao,
Adriano
:veryconfused::veryconfused:[/quote]
Ciao,
Unless the hire company have valid credit card details for you I would ignore it. If they had they would have just taken it from your card, as they did for me about 9 months after the offence. Incidentally it is always a good idea to use your card with the closest expiry date for car hire as they have an open-ended mandate for adding charges. As I have now learned :frown:
I doubt Pisa authorities will do anything further. If the letter wasn't signed for then they have no idea whether anyone received it.
If it was me I'd file it under "bin"
Pip pip
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[quote=chrisnotton;116686]Ciao,
Unless the hire company have valid credit card details for you I would ignore it.
Pip pip[/quote]
Now, I am not sure I would advise this. A number of times my Italian friends have told me to ignore a fine for various reason, but in the end I have always had to pay. Only a fair bit more than if I had paid on the first bill. I suppose it makes a difference if you are living here or were just visiting.
If you get done in Belgium, just pay. The b@£$ards would go to the moon to collect on a parking fine.:yes:
Mark
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
It's a tricky one and if you have driven where you should not have driven it's a fair cop. Tourists I know, caught driving in similar restricted areas in Florence have had to pay heavy fines, (they mount up if the traffic signs are hard to read/see). Apparently Tuscany employs specialist agencies to collect the fines for them and that applies to the UK. So it's a bit of a lottery Adriano.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
You may not have got the original letter but they have, seemingly, caught up with you now. I would advise you to pay up.
What you don’t want is for the fine to escalate.
Also I believe that the Italian authorities will pass details to the DVLA – this might be an urban myth but I wouldn’t want to find out the hard way.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Pisa ZTL fines are discussed endlessly elsewhere online. Here is just one example that you might find informative: [url=http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187895-i68-k2226761]Pisa Restricted Zone Traffic Fine - Florence Forum - TripAdvisor[/url]
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
If a letter cant be delivered, it is finally lodged with the comune and classed as delivered. This is posta ordinaria and raccomandate. I know - Ive just got a fine for a speeding offence I committed in October 2006 - they notified me in December 2006 to an address where i no longer lived and the post office didnt forward my mail. Now they have found me and instead of being 120 euros it is now 400.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[quote=Adriano;116680]Hi all!
I have just received a fine in the post from the Municipalty of Pisa, for the ofence of "circulating in restricted trafic zone withouth authorisation"
Ciao,
Adriano
:veryconfused::veryconfused:[/quote]
How far inside the Duomo did you get with your Panda? :bigergrin:
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
We got done with the same thing in Pisa, drove fairly close to the Tower, parked and had a look around, we were on our way back from France, I had decided to drive a different route, we drove throught the area at 4.00 am.
The fine arrived about 6 mths later €80 ish.
The fine had 2 parts one part about €5 more than the other, if you paid within 60 days you pay the lesser ammount.
IMO it's better to pay even if you don't live here.
Stribs
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
We got a parking ticket in Volterra in 2005 - in a free carpark but with an area of about 20 yards with obscure no parking arrows. Tried to pay but police station closed. When we returned to the apartments we were advised to forget about it as we were in our own car rather than a hire car. Up to now they haven't caught up with us - fingers crossed. There were a few foreign registered cars who had inadvertently parked in the wrong place and who all had a ticket.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Adriano - hello fellow Dorset resident!! :smile:
The thing I would worry about is visiting Italy in the future. What if they have debt collectors? I have read a few items recently on other countries chasing up motoring fines. I would prefer to be safe than sorry. :no:
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Although I always pay my village parking tickets, to date, I've ignored all my ZTL fines, and I have many from various cities in Tuscany. (I dare not ever set foot in Arezzo again!)Judging by the amount of international press coverage the ZTL fines have been receiving, I suspect municipal authorities in Italy are swamped with outstanding fines from visitors around the globe and, knowing how things work in this country, surely it's inconceivable that they'll ever follow up and chase debtors?
Then you have other considerations: is the fine legit or one of the notorious Italian ZTL fine scams? (There was an article about this recently in the Guardian, can anyone find the link?) And even if it is genuine, how and where do you pay it? Personally, I would only ever pay in person at an official government office (such as municiple police) and I would always demand a receipt. I would never wire money to anywhere. So, if you can't physically go in person, it could be argued that you're better off sitting on it/forgetting it.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
for people with property in Italy ignoring a fine could eventually lead to the debt collecting companies assigning the debt to your property forever and you might never know until they reckon they can actually have enough value in it to be able to take your property away... or if you try to sell it for any reason finding the notary will have to see that the debt has been cleared before any completion of the sale
people for instance spend hours in queues in rome trying to pay fines that have accrued on their property...often mistakenly ... because they have been paid ... and which can end up being in the tens of thousand...
the advice on getting a receipt and who to pay is very sound... however once the debt collecting agencies here get their hands on it then the totals rise surprisingly fast... so i would pay them off straight away if i had a letter from them... the Italian system is slow but sure..very sure... i have posted in the past about the code fiscale system here... and in essence it provides them with a very full record of everything you own or buy... from your cell phone,car to house...and often fridge,tv et al... so they will have you on record for sure
most of this doesnt apply to the original post ... but some of the thoughts on ignoring fines regarding those that live here with property would be in my opinion unwise to follow
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Got me wondering now.... I drove through Pisa last year on the way back to the airport, but the year before we didn't have a car for our week in Florence so I'm ok there but our 1st year we had terrible trouble getting anywhere - first visit, no idea what the signs with the towtruck meant, absolute nightmare!
This link though [url=http://www.bella-toscana.com/traffic_violations_italy.htm]Traffic violations in Italy - restricted traffic zones in Florence[/url] shows just how bad it really is. A driver is fined in Florence every.... go on - have a guess? Every - 5 minutes? 3 minutes? 1 minute? Nope - even worse! Have a look. :wideeyed:
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
How you respond depends on whether you accept liability for the offence.
European governments are now cooperating with each other to pursue foreign offenders in their home countries.
See [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1538043/No-escape-for-drivers-caught-abroad.html]No escape for drivers caught abroad - Telegraph[/url]
Unless you're sure you didn't commit the offence it might be better to pay up before it gets any more expensive.
Calum
Am I seeing double?
Bin the thing and give your money to the people who need it why dontcha?
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