Many tourists and visitors, including Italians, major cities of the peninsula have more often than not the very unpleasant surprise to receive tickets several months after their visit. Racket Turin and traffic scams in areas reserved for local residents or lack of information and vigilance of motorists?
Move and park in the city center of Turin by car
A very unpleasant feeling seized more and more tourists, including the Hautes Alpes, going to Turin. Several months after their visit, sometimes until almost a year later. Motorists are fined for "access in pedestrian zone or restricted traffic area without the necessary authorization". Hundreds of messages dot social networks and internet forums about it.
These areas of downtown, in Turin but also in Rome, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Bologna or Naples seem reserved for the owners of a vehicle registered in the city. An electronic system is in charge of imposing the contravention. This is usually 50 euros to which are added 50 euros file and postal charges for France, which ultimately amounts to more than 100 euros.
Even if it is admitted, understandable to put in place rules of circulation, and, why not, to limit the accesses to the city centers to the cars, some questions arise:
- Why is the signaling indicating these areas not more visible, to the point that very many people are trapped?
- The final amount of 100 euros and sometimes more, because the passages are cumulative during a single trip, is it not disproportionate?
- Is the 6 to 12 months delay between the offense and its notification normal?
- Is there, as in London, a "performance" system linked to these fines?
- The numerous underground car parks in the city center along Via Roma are not accessible to visitors?
- Are there differentiated access rights according to the pollution level of the vehicle attested by the Crit'air or other vignettes?
- The beautiful city of Turin, but also the other Italian cities concerned, it would not gain better information to users of the road to avoid this kind of inconvenience: larger and better arranged panels, retractable terminal system, luminous indications , information on tourist offices sites etc ...?
We have written to the Tourist Office of Turin to obtain information about this regulation ... unanswered to date despite an acknowledgment of receipt of our email. Note that this contrasts with the professionalism usually found at the tourist office of Turin, on site or online ...
Here is a copy of the fine received but also a map of the ZTL area of Turin ("valid" in autumn 2017) and signs ...
French links
- Info on the website of the French Embassy in Italy : https://it.ambafrance.org/Voyager-en-Italie-attention-a-la
- The ZTL zone of Turin : http://www.comune.torino.it/trasporti/ztl/
- Online payment of the fine : http://www.comune.torino.it/vigiliurbani/sanzioni/pagamento/paiement.shtml
- Franco-Italian agreement for cross-border payments of fines : https://www.legipermis.com/blog/2016/01/20/amendes-pour-des-infractions-en-italie/
- Article of 60 million consumers : http://www.60millions-mag.com/2010/07/28/l-italie-met-ses-touristes-l-amende-7663