They are small, often with minimal staff and, year after year, suffer cuts in transfers from the state and regions. Are the Italian municipalities that do not have a thousand inhabitants. Despite everything, they do not give up monitoring the roads under their jurisdiction and “pinching” drivers who violate the highway code both through Local agents and with automatic systems such as Speed Cameras. Collections which, in all, are valid million euros.
Fines and speed cameras in small municipalities: the ranking
According to the ranking, drawn up by Facile.it via the Siope ministerial computer system, the one who benefited the most from fines and verbal reports to families, in 2023, among these villages was Carrodano, in the La Spezia area: 464 inhabitants and collections of 975,797 euros. In second place there is Colle Santa Luciain the Belluno area (346 inhabitants and 747 thousand euros) while finishing on the podium Candain the Rodigino area, which has 823 inhabitants and has exceeded 426 thousand euros.
Then away we go Poggio San Lorenzoin the Rieti area, (546 inhabitants, 415 thousand euros) and Belmonte Castle, in the Frusinate area, (677 inhabitants, 315 thousand euros). Going into detail, Carrodano it is one of the gateways to the Cinque Terre and the speed camera “voice” also contributed to the “primacy”. For the latest available statement, referring to 2022, it weighed one hundred thousand euros. For those arriving from Levanto it is placed at the end of a straight road.
The reactions
“Several serious road collisions have occurred in recent years,” explained mayor Gian Carlo Leveratto. «In any case, in 2023 we did not only send the files for that year – specified the mayor – but we had to send folders related to 2018 and 2019 because our collection force is limited. However, we don’t collect everything because 50 percent of the proceeds from speed cameras go to the Province of La Spezia which owns the road.”
Speed cameras
This winter, many of these small towns have had to deal with Fleximen vandalism who destroyed several speed meters (costing up to 50 thousand euros) such as, for example, the one on Giau pass, in the territory of Colle Santa Lucia. In the latest available statement for 2022 he collected 349,980 euros. He’s on the podium Canda which, however, does not have speed cameras. «My fellow citizens are not highwaymen at all – reassures the mayor Alessandro Berta – because the 426 thousand euros for 2023 also take into account sums from previous years. Furthermore, I only have one policeman on staff and it would be humanly impossible for him to take so many reports.”
«Lifesaver»
Luigi Altamura, commander of the Verona police force and Anci representative of the local police, wants to clear the table of controversy. «Fines, especially those from speed cameras, are not used to “raise cash” as some would like you to think but to save lives — argues — pbecause they are all authorized by a decree of the prefect. It issues it after an investigation which verifies whether there has really been a high accident rate in the stretch where the Municipalities are requesting it to be installed. In Verona it was positioned on the Northern ring road, where from 2006 to 2022 every year there were 70 autonomous spills with injuries and deaths due to high speed. In 2023, five occurred and no victims. I don’t think we need to add anything else to demonstrate its usefulness.”
