[Note: This represents the Moderators' summary of information from the numerous discussions of the titled topic.]

Recently Slow Travel was requested by some members to take an active position with respect to the Italian Traffic and Parking regulations and their applications.

With apologies for its length, this is our reply:

We are tremendously honoured that members believe that Slow Travel, as a website, can have such impact on the legislation and administration of a country’s laws, but this is a burden we are not equipped for and we must disappoint our members if such were their expectations.

We are a website providing information from its members to its members and we also provide the forum for related discussions. In matters such as that of travellers and their relationship with the laws of the countries in which they travel, we try at the best of our ability to warn, to help preventing, but we cannot provide remedies when the local law or regulation comes in between a member and local authorities.

We are not an activist website, nor do we have the resources to engage in any kind of public movement.

We are as good as our members are. More precisely, our ambition is to be as good as our members are. If you wish, we are the Hyde Park and we provide the Speakers’ Corner. But the members are those who have to step up on those boxes and speak up.

We are just one voice.

The members are many.

In previous discussions on related topics we have suggested to our members that the best way in which to raise awareness to the matter of traffic and parking tickets and fines is to bring our individual concerns and demands to those Italian institutions which either are affected by the public discontent with the way justice is administered or to those which can best affect it.

The first would be the municipalities who issue and impose the various regulations and by-laws, the rental car companies which operate within those regions and car rentals brokers, not to speak of hotels or apartment owners, all bodies which have a vested interest in keeping travellers coming. The second would be bodies such as the Italian Tourist Boards, Italian Consulate Generals and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And maybe to Italian newspapers.

For most of these, we provided the links.

Numerous letters or telephone calls or emails will sooner or later gather sufficient attention to have an impact. In the view of the Moderators of this website, this is what members can do, and should do.

Before starting to write these lines, we took an inventory of the topics in which traffic and parking tickets in Italy were the central motif. Here is the impressive list of previous discussions, which also includes how to contact Italian authorities who have a say in this subject or a need to know, in our opinion. The list is not in chronological order but covers these topics in the latter part of 2007 and so far in 2008:

FAQ: European Municipality Outsourcing-Parking and Traffic Tickets

Traffic Violation Question

POSTED: Traffic Cameras on Roadways and in Towns, by Jane

Driving in Florence

What to do about a traffic ticket?

Rental car or train into Florence & Venice

Florence Driving Difficulties

map for no drive zone in Rome

Another ticket nightmare

speeding ticket

Florence, new traffic patterns around Borgo Ognissanti

Poster to Slow Travel: "Help"

EUROPEAN MUNICIPALITY OUTSOURCING International notification infringement to the Italian Highway Code

Our own "Driving in Italy"

ENIT-The Italian Government Tourist Board which has in the middle of the home page a highlighted clickable warning "Limited traffic areas in Italy: Drivers be aware!!!" which then provides information on driving in Italy and what "Limited traffic areas (Zona Traffico Limitato)" or ZTL are. Finally, at the bottom of the rightmost column of the ENIT home page there are clickable links for ENIT North America and for ENIT World, which provide full contact information for the Italian Tourism Board offices, complete with names, telephone numbers, mailing addresses, and in some cases email addresses.

To close, here is what we wrote, again under my name, in one of the discussions quoted above, on 13 February 2008:

QUOTE I have a suggestion for us all, those who have been placed in the situation of receiving fines, admin fees, etc., as result of traffic and parking violations.

Let me be clear in that I do not believe for a moment that the Italian Government, Italian municipalities and other Italian bodies which are responsible for traffic and transportation have created the rules we keep talking about in this topic in order to persecute tourists or in order to fund their own financial difficulties off the backs of tourists.

Italy, like the entire world today, has a major problem with the exponentially increasing and limitless development of automotive traffic, regardless of who is at the steering wheel.

It seems to me the targets of these "draconian" rules are first and foremost the Italian drivers.

We, travellers to Italy, are a "side effect" or collateral persons of interest in this process.

The difference between an Italian driver and a Traveller driver is mainly that the first can argue the infraction immediately, locally and in his/her own language. Travellers receive these infraction advices months later and, because of the process, end up having to pay a triple cost level: the one charged by the car rental company, the one charged by the municipality, and whatever overhead the collection or recovery company has to charge for their activity.

So what I think needs to be addressed is the obscurity of the process in which municipalities, rental car companies, collection agencies, etc., attempt to collect those fines. As a poster said earlier, this process has unfortunate similarities with all kinds of online scams and it is difficult to ascertain when a fine is legitimate and when not.

So here is what I suggest: all those who feel unfairly affected by this process should write to the E.N.I.T. The Italian Government Tourism Board,

Here are the full details of how to address the New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto Office of E.N.I.T., with full addresses, telephone numbers, including names where applicable.

I believe it is incumbent upon us, travellers who love and appreciate Italy and the Italian people, to make the Italian governmental bodies for which tourism to Italy has relevance aware of the fact that we do not expect them to change laws and by-laws for our benefit but that the process as is presently does not help tourism to Italy and should be considered so as to make it more tourist-friendly.

And by all means complain to those hotels which do not provide the necessary information to their guests; it may help others.

My suggestion, for whatever is worth, was intended to draw the attention of those promoting travel to Italy, so that they will see what our concerns with the process are and possibly act as a catalyst by the regulatory level, to make the system more direct, and faster. END OF QUOTE

We will conclude by repeating that, although it appears under Doru's signature, this response was discussed and reviewed by all Moderators and represents our collective view. You may or may not agree with us. It is a free world!

The Moderators