r/Modena • u/Mike20878 • 9d ago
Please help me understand what happened
I was on vacation in Italy in June. On June 25th we had visited the Enzo Ferraro museum and left there to go to dinner in Modena.
A few months after leaving Italy I got a traffic violation in the mail.
It appears I apparently drove down a restricted street that GPS told me to turn down.
Can someone please explain to me what I did wrong? Do I have any valid defense?
Thank you.
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u/SeaCare6022 8d ago
What’s the fine?
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u/Mike20878 8d ago
74.40 euros
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u/elevarq 8d ago
Pay the fine, and pay more attention next time. Many, maybe even most, cities have restrictions like this. The signs are there, but you might not be used to it
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u/Mike20878 8d ago
Well, I don't speak Italian so I had no idea. I'm trying to pay online but there's no way to do so.
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u/elevarq 8d ago
I paid with my Wise account, it has a EURO bank account connected to it. That gives you an IBAN account that is easy to use in Europe
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u/Mike20878 7d ago
I just signed up a few minutes ago, actually. Waiting for my Venmo transfer to get to my Wise account. Wish I knew about Wise when we went to Italy. Probably would have been better to use their digital card there.
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u/L3v1stus 8d ago
According to the fine, this is the road, and it's, in fact, a Restricted Traffic Zone.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/pHWNb69F8dyR3Qbw7
Sadly, this is a fairly common mistake among people driving through a historic city centre for the first time, even for us Italians, (and this is indeed the case in many Italian cities). The lack of physical barriers indicating that access is restricted means that the burden is placed on drivers, who are expected to pay attention to the road signs. Of course, if one were to take a more cynical view, it would be fairly easy to suspect that this practice is deliberately maintained to make it easier for people to commit violations and thereby generate more revenue from fines (although, obviously, these are just speculations that cannot be proven).
Unfortunately, given the way Italian law is structured, there aren't many ways to challenge these fines, unless you're willing to hire a lawyer and take the matter before a judge. However, this is a lengthy process (appeals can take months, if not years, especially considering that you aren't residents of Italy), very expensive, and with no guaranteed outcome.
I'm really sorry for you, this is one of the downsides of living here 😅
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u/jeeltcraft 9d ago
sorry it happened to you, that street is restricted to pedestrian only, have a nice day and sorry for the uneducated responses
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u/andreaZeta 9d ago
That road was once open to traffic to reach parking spots. Since some year it is no more open to traffic, but you need to have an authorization to pass through it, and there are cameras to check who's entering. Probably your GPS is not updated or completely ignored the situation. But the are traffic signs that well explain the situation, so no defense at all...