Traffic violation notice from Sicilian police 10 months after visit.

itm2

This morning I received two payment demands from the Siracusa Police in Sicily  (102 Euros each) - both contraventions of the Italian Highway Code for crossing the Ponte Santa Lucia in Ortigia at times when the ZTL was in force (last September - 10 months ago). My understanding (from asking in forums) was that the route we took (directly to a car park on the north side) was outside the exclusion zone, but I'm now thinking that I was badly advised.

Does anyone know how diligent the Siracusa Police are at following up cases like this?

jonesMUFCforever

Do you want to go back to Italy any time soon?
They might share information with other EU crime agencies so it might come up when you enter any EU country.
IMO suck it up and pay for peace of mind - if you were guilty of course.

TELLIT01

Even if the OP wasn't guilty it will be nigh on impossible to prove that.  Sadly, I must agree with the previous post - suck it up.

pogofish

Are they actually asking you to pay Siracusa Police, or are they directing you to pay a U.K. company?  This is important.

itm2

pogofish said:

Are they actually asking you to pay Siracusa Police, or are they directing you to pay a U.K. company?  This is important.

The payment instructions are to go to https://emo.nivi.it with login details provided. The payment beneficiary is "NIVI SPA". They seem to be an outsourcing organization for chasing up traffic offences.

pogofish

I don’t know enough about NIVI to make any comment but IIRC, for minor traffic issues, Italian authorities have up to 360 days to serve notice to people outside Italy before it becomes utterly unenforceable.

There are periodic spates of demands sent out by U.K. debt collectors who buy-up the tickets that the Italians have absolutely no interest in, or even the ability to enforce and they are fully ignorable and recently we have seen a good few of those on here.

NoodleDoodleMan

I'd hesitate to mess with anything Sicilian - be prepared for an offer you can't refuse !!!

desrese

Do you have google timeline enabled on your mobile phone? You can at least see exactly where you were at the time and also use as evidence if you are in the right.

itm2

desrese said:

Do you have google timeline enabled on your mobile phone? You can at least see exactly where you were at the time and also use as evidence if you are in the right.

I'm pretty sure they got the location correct. It's the advice regarding it being exempt from the ZTL that I am now questioning, as I chose the car park on the advice of a local person on a forum.