Driving in Italy can be a hair-raising experience, particularly for visitors unused to the usual Italian driving style and speed – so it may be surprising to hear that Italian roads are actually the most heavily speed-regulated in Europe.
Italy has more speed cameras than any other European country with 11,130 autovelox devices lining the country’s roads and motorways, according to a report from Italian consumer association Codacons.
This far exceeds the number in Germany, with around 4,700, France (3,780), and the UK (7,700).
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In fact, Codacons says ten percent of all speed cameras in the world were found in Italy alone, and that the only countries with more cameras are much larger – Russia (18,414), and Brazil (17,614).
Italy’s many speed traps are unsurprisingly unpopular with motorists, and politicians often capitalise on this sentiment by railing against their apparent overuse – though the number continues to rise regardless.
Now however, the government has published new rules regulating the use of speed cameras, drawn up Transport Minister and populist League party leader Matteo Salvini.
Salvini – a vocal critic of speed-reduction measures in various forms – has long claimed that the cameras are widely misused. Ahead of the publication of the new rules on their use on Tuesday, he said local authorities place cameras “everywhere just to harass workers and motorists” and insisted they should only be used on “roads where the risk is higher”.
Codacons too accuses some local authorities of placing an unnecessarily high number of speed traps purely to raise revenue, though stresses that penalties for dangerous driving should be tougher.
Public opinion on the proliferation of speed cameras was divided earlier this year when a mysterious vigilante, dubbed ‘Fleximan’ by the Italian press, dismantled and damaged dozens of speed traps in northern Italy.
While some hailed Fleximan as a hero fighting a state-sponsored “racket” to raise funds, others said the campaign was nothing but vandalism and warned that removing speed cameras could cost lives.
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So will the new rules from Salvini’s ministry actually reduce the number of cameras on Italian roads, or otherwise change the way they are used?
The newly-published decree essentially says that local councils will no longer have the power to decide where to place speed cameras – this will now be up to prefectures in each province instead, according to Italian media reports.
The prefecture will have to follow new rules from the transport ministry, which stipulate new minimum distances between cameras depending on the type of road, and ban the installation of new speed cameras on roads with a 50-kilometre speed limit or lower.
The rules are also set to make it easier for motorists to dispute speeding fines.
Local councils will have 12 months to adapt their existing cameras to meet the new regulations, which are set to come into force within 15 days.
While the new measures could limit the number of speed cameras installed in future, they don’t say anything about removing existing speed traps and appear instead to be aimed at tackling – or appearing to tackle – the issue of local authorities allegedly using them to raise revenue.
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The 20 largest cities in Italy collected a total of nearly 76 million euros from speeding fines in 2022 – up by 61.7 percent compared to the previous year, according to Codacons.
Smaller towns are more often criticised for installing too many speed cameras: the local councils that issue the most sanctions are those with fewer than ten thousand inhabitants, according to a study last year by financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.
For larger cities however, data suggests that speeding fines aren’t such a major source of revenue. Milan and Rome issue fewer fines for speeding than for any other type of driving offence, Il Sole 24 Ore found.
While Milan received 13 million euros from speeding tickets in 2022, 138.5 million was paid in fines for other infringements of the road rules. In Rome, the figure was four million compared to 127 million.
There’s also the question of how many fines are actually paid: in Milan, 65 percent of speeding fines were paid in 2022, while in Naples the figure was just two percent.
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