Absurd

 

I got this in the post three days ago and I must admit I am still absolutely gobsmacked at the absurdity of it.

I have been driving for forty years without a single speeding ticket or accident. Forty years. I have navigated motorways, icy Highland backroads, chaotic French roundabouts and the entire length of Denmark more times than I can count. I have survived Spanish drivers who love to go fast, German drivers on the limitless Autobahn, blizzards in Switzerland, cliffs in Greece, you name it... I have even survived Italian drivers year after year on our trips to the Tuscan house - when they shake their fists at you for stopping at a red light because they can see nothing is coming! I had really hoped that would earn me some sort of honorary medal. Instead I have been rewarded with… this.

A speeding ticket.

For driving at 51 km/h in a 50 km/h zone.

I actually read the letter three times, mainly because my Italian is a little rusty these days but also because I simply could not believe that anyone, let alone a real paid adult working for the Florentine police, would bother writing to another adult about one single solitary kilometre. I do not believe I have ever driven a car, hired or otherwise, with a speedometer capable of displaying anything that precise. Especially as the hire car I was in had one of those old-fashioned dial speedometers where the needle vibrates merrily between numbers as if to say, “Look, roughly here-ish, ok? Be grateful.”

I mean honestly, even Ryanair let me away with 10.3kg for my 10kg check-in bag to Madrid two weeks ago. And Ryanair is a company that charges you £60 if you even think about printing your boarding pass these days.

Yet the Florentine police went to the trouble of tracking me down through the hire company, sending a registered letter across Europe, and presumably spending hours of manpower all to fine me €68 for drifting one kilometre per hour over the limit. The postage alone on the registered letter that seemed to have been sent from the hire company head quarters in Amsterdam rather than the local branch I had used in Pisa must have wiped out more than half their profit. Add in the admin time and the ink used to print the letter, and I suspect both of us have ended up financially worse off.

But wait, it gets better.

I had four days to pay it before the fine jumped to nearly €200. Nothing says “Welcome to our beautiful historic region” quite like a threat.

I am not someone who objects to reasonable speeding fines. If I had been flying along at 70 in a 50 zone, I would hold up my hands and accept it. But 51? One measly kilometre? Seriously?

I feel like this is the kind of fine they only get away with sending to hire cars and foreign number plates because the Italians I know would not even consider this reasonable.

Anyway, I have paid it. Mainly because I hire cars in Tuscany too often to be black-listed, but also because arguing over 1 km/h felt like the sort of thing that could tip me into a full midlife crisis. In the meantime Marcel and Charlotte who hired cars in the same region the week after me are hovering over their letterboxes with fear in their hearts.

Next time I drive in Italy, though, I will know to keep a very close eye on the speedometer and piss off absolutely all the locals by driving everywhere at 45km/h.