Rome, 29 April 2024 – “No Speed Cameras in Italy it is compliant. Not even Photored, breathalyzers and cameras that monitor entry into restricted traffic zones, could issue fines.”
A speed camera
Giorgio Marcon, from Veneto, introduces himself as a “technical investigative consultant”. Self-taught, he works in the team of the ‘Legal Protection Centre’, which assists motorists in appeals throughout Italy, a pool of experts and lawyers who do battle. “Over 90% victories on velox”, ensures. He has been involved in road safety for decades, he even bought a speed camera “and I dismantled it to understand how it works. I also have a tool to test breathalyzers.”
Marcon, it goes down hard: he fails all the electronic eyes.
“No one has what it takes.”
Explain.
“They have never obtained legal and metrological certification.”
In reality, the Supreme Court has just ruled: if the speed cameras are not approved, the fines can be challenged, approval is not enough. Instead?
“Before that, Mimit must intervene. These are not details. The legal and metrological certification must verify, for example, whether the instrument has the technical requirements to release precise measurements. If the machine does not pass that exam, it cannot obtain approval, which it is up to the MIT”.
Will these gaps be remedied with the new highway code?
“No, if there is no legal metrological certification first, no tool can be used to impose fines. The code will be able to remedy the approval by the Ministry of Transport, nothing else. There is always a fundamental piece missing, first. Which is up to Mimit, as established by article 117 of the Constitutional Charter”.
So does a driver who speeds at full speed and puts safety at risk come to the side of reason because the State is at fault?
“But if there are those who do 180 on a road that instead requires 90 per hour, with the fine do we think we have solved the problem? If there are those who run at that speed, I, the mayor, have to set up patrols and catch the criminals. If instead I limit myself to making reports and that’s it, in the end I become an accomplice.”
How should the over 11 thousand speed cameras in Italy be used?
“Definitely for statistics, not fines.”
