Speed cameras: the law has required them to be type-approved since 1992, the procedure arrived in 2026, the fines had already been paid
15 October 2026, 22:37
On Tuesday 13 October the Council of Ministers approved Italy's new Highway Code. The Ministry of Infrastructure assures that from now on fines will serve «as a deterrent, not as harassment». From now on.
The next day Codacons, a consumer association, counted the fines already paid. In 2025 municipalities, provinces and metropolitan cities collected €1.9 billion in traffic fines. In the twenty-one main provincial capitals, speed camera fines brought €306.5 million into council coffers between 2021 and 2025. The new Code generally lowers the amount of fines, and Codacons warns that the municipalities' takings «could fall significantly».
It remains to be seen with which devices that money was collected.
Since 1992 the Highway Code has accepted as evidence of speed the readings of «duly type-approved equipment». For thirty-four years, however, the ministry never wrote down how a speed camera is type-approved. Devices were approved, mounted on poles, and issued fines. In April 2024 the Court of Cassation, with order no. 10505, pointed out the difference: approving is not type-approving, and a fine issued with a device that is merely approved is unlawful.
The ministry needed two years to answer. The answer is a decree signed on 8 June 2026 and in force since 12 July, which declares 25 models already approved in 2017 type-approved by default: about 3,150 devices. The same ones as the day before. Since then the report says «type-approved». Before, it did not, and people paid all the same.
The new rule applies only to the future. Those who appealed in time, sixty days before the prefect or thirty before the justice of the peace, had the Court of Cassation on their side. Those who trusted the report and paid gave up the right to challenge it: by law, paying closes the matter. That money all came in before the decree.
The law asks for something, the ministry does not make it possible, and the municipalities meanwhile put the takings in their budgets. When a judge notices, the future is fixed. Drivers have already paid for the past.
The new Code is not yet in force, and it can still settle what happens to fines issued before the decree. The ministry's note reported by ANSA talks about something else: tampered microcars, personalised number plates, the driving licence at seventeen dropped from the first draft.
So the question, for the Ministry of Infrastructure: does the «not harassment» purpose also apply backwards, to those who paid a fine which, for the Court of Cassation, lacked valid evidence?
Speed cameras have been type-approved since 12 July. The fines were being collected long before.
This article was prompted by a news item published in ANSA on 14 October 2026.