Road Safety

From traffic fines already 1.3 billion in revenue for municipalities

Despite Minister Salvini's crusade on fines and speed cameras, according to Codacons, road fines continue to swell the coffers of local authorities

Redaction Rome

28 October 2024

Salvini: presto un tavolo tecnico per omologazione degli autovelox

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3' min read

Despite the crossing of the Transport Minister Matteo Salvini on the subject of fines and speed cameras, road fines continue to generate huge revenues for the coffers of local authorities, to the point that in the first ten months of 2024 alone, the amount spent by households on traffic violations comes to 1.3 billion euros. The Codacons, which unveils the revenues of local authorities generated to date by road traffic sanctions, is the one who rattles off the data.

"As of 17 October, revenues for the year 2024 from fines imposed on households for traffic violations amounted to a total of €1,294,799,772 in Italy," the association explained.

Lombardy leads

Lombardy holds the top spot in terms of takings with an impressive 324 million euro, followed by Lazio (130 million) and Emilia Romagna (129 million). At the tail end was Molise with just 1.4 million euro in the period considered. Among the big cities with more than 250,000 inhabitants Milan is at the top of the fine revenue ranking with 128.7 million euro in proceeds, far behind Rome (in second place with 88 million) and Turin (in third place with 43.7 million).

Small municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants collected a total of EUR 72.7 million from traffic sanctions in 2024, a figure that rises to EUR 93 million if we consider municipalities with between 5,000 and 10,000 inhabitants. Over 410 million were the total takings of administrations with more than 250 thousand inhabitants. Of the total fines, small municipalities hold a 12.8 per cent share of the proceeds, while almost a third of the revenue (31.7 per cent) is guaranteed by large cities, Codacons calculates.

Ligurian citizens pay the most

As the consumers' association explains, however, if one analyses the trend in fines in relation to the number of residents in each region, one discovers that the citizens who pay the most fines are those of Liguria: here the per capita value of road fines, according to the Codacons report, stands at 40.1 euro. In second place is Tuscany with an average of 34.9 euros per resident, followed by Lombardy with 32.3 euros per capita. The trend is quite different in the southern regions of Italy: Molise closes the ranking with an average amount of traffic fines of just EUR 4.9 per resident, EUR 8.9 Calabria and Sardinia, just over EUR 9 in Sicily.

"Lack of transparency on the use of funds"

"We have always been in favour of hitting those who break the rules and put safety at risk with the utmost severity, but while there is talk of reforming the Highway Code and we are waiting to see the effects of the speed camera revolution desired by Minister Salvini, fines continue to represent an immense source of income for local authorities," says President Carlo Rienzi. "However," Rienzi continues, "if on the one hand the revenues of municipalities guaranteed by road fines are growing, on the other hand transparency about the use of these resources by local administrations not only does not increase, but even seems to be hindered. This is the case of the MIT's famous Observatory on road fines introduced by the Pa bis decree law of 2023, which should have come into operation as early as last year, with the task of producing an annual report with data on road accidents and on the regularity and transparency in the use of the proceeds of administrative fines and the use of electronic speed control devices. Nothing more is known about that observatory, a serious and unjustified delay to the detriment of citizens about which Transport Minister Matteo Salvini would do well to explain to the Italians,' Rienzi concludes.