approved or approved? Complex issue also in Rimini • newsrimini.it

Approved or just approved? The speed camera case spreads throughout Italy between courtrooms and legal issues with subtle boundaries.
The Supreme Court order which upheld the appeal of a Venetian motorist explains that “fines for speeding are not valid if the detection device is not approved but only approved”. The municipality of Rimini let us know that the city’s speed cameras are all approved. However, not everyone thinks this way. L’Globoconsumatori association, which has been dealing with the topic for years with dozens of successful appeals, contacted us explaining that things would be different. “The approval decree of the 105 SE speed camera (editor’s note: the model used along Euterpe, Settembrini and Tolemaide streets in Rimini”) published on the website of the municipality of Rimini – explains one of the association’s collaborators – in reality it says inside that <>”. Therefore it would not be a question of homologation but only of approval. Furthermore, in the certificates of conformity (again from the municipality’s website), the title of the document speaks of <> but inside it states that <>. Globoconsumatori then sent us a 2021 ruling from the Court of Rome concerning a 105 SE model speed camera which states that <>. Another appeal on the same instrumentation, we are told, was won a few weeks ago in Bologna with similar reasons.
Could the Supreme Court order therefore also create consequences in the Rimini area? Difficult to predict. The Court, however, clarifies that the ministerial circulars which would seem to endorse a possible equivalence between approval and approval are irrelevant on an interpretative level and do not constitute legal value. But what is the difference between the two procedures? Ministerial approval authorizes the serial reproduction of a device tested in a laboratory, with attribution of competence to the Ministry for Economic Development, while approval consists of a procedure that does not require comparison of the prototype but only its authorization in reference to the expected standards. “To date there is no speed camera that has approval” the president of Globoconsumatori Mario Gatto said a few months ago at a hearing at the Transport Commission.
Guilt of a sort legislative void linked to the lack of specific rules within the highway code. A situation that also worries Asaps, the Romagna portal dedicated to road safety, which plans to launch thousands of appeals by motorists. “Now an amendment to the Highway Code reform bill would be needed under discussion in the Senate which finally establishes the equality between approval and homologation of speed meters” we read in a note published by Asaps.