Happy International Workers’ Day!
Just after leaving the Milan airport last month, I got clocked doing 120 kilometers an hour in a 110 kph zone. Yes, that’s 6.21 miles per hour over the speed limit.
I’m no speed demon. As a matter of fact, I’m more of an overly cautious, defensive driver.
But as European traffic laws and electronic surveillance of drivers become increasingly stringent and robust, people like me are ticketed more frequently, often because we simply don’t realize we’ve entered a new speed limit zone.
The most frustrating thing about Italian speeding and traffic tickets is that they are incredibly difficult to pay from abroad. And by the time you receive the official ticket (not just the notice from the rental car agency), you’ve already accrued penalties that drive up the cost from around €50 to nearly €200.
Here’s the good news. It used to be that you had to pay a local authority via a bank wire. Now, Italy has implemented a new portal called Pagopa.
But here’s the catch. When the rental agency forwards the notice about the ticket, it includes the ticket reference number but does not include the code for the recipient of the money (the local authority who processes the payment).
Hoping to avoid subsequent penalties for late payment, I wrote to the Pagopa help email asking for assistance. They responded the next day and provided the second code I needed. And voilà, I paid my ticket on time! A miracle! At least in my experience…
A good friend recently told me that he was able to pay a ticket using PayPal. But in his case, he was already 60 past the payment due date and so he had to pay the extra fines.
It’s great news about Pagopa.
But for the first time ever, I managed to avoid the extra fines.
Thank you, Pagopa! You are awesome!