Consumer alarm: higher fines from January, risk of price increases of up to 17.6 per cent

Risk of increases for fines. As of 1 January, fines for traffic offences could rise by 6 per cent, or even 17 per cent, linked to the inflation adjustment provided for in the Highway Code. The alarm comes from consumer associations that recall how the update was suspended in the last two years to avoid aggravations after the Covid epidemic, but now risks - without government intervention - to accumulate and trigger automatically.

In fact, Article 195 of the Highway Code states that 'the measure of administrative fines shall be updated every two years to an extent equal to the entire variation, ascertained by Istat, of the consumer price index for families of workers and employees (national average) that occurred in the previous two years'. An adjustment that the government had decided to block with the Budget Law of 2023 until the end of 2024.

Assoutenti therefore calculates a 6 per cent increase which, taking into account the rounding up provided for by the rule, would translate, for example, into a 10 euro increase in the fine for using a mobile phone while driving, from 165 to 175 euros, or a 3 euro increase for the fine for parking, from 42 to 45 euros. The fine for exceeding the speed limit from 10 to 40 kilometres would instead rise from 173 to 183 euros (+10 euros), and the fine for exceeding the speed limit from 40 to 60 kilometres per hour from 543 to 576 euros (+33 euros); finally, the fine would rise to 896 euros in the case of exceeding the speed limit by more than 60 kilometres per hour (+51 euros). "It is important to prosecute traffic violations that jeopardise public safety, but it is certainly not by increasing the amounts of fines that more safety on our roads will be guaranteed," commented association president Gabriele Melluso, proposing a two-year educational plan in high schools and calling for a new suspension of the increases.

Also because the budget could be much heavier: according to the National Consumers' Union, the increase could in fact reach 17.6 per cent. In 2022, the UNC explains, the government had only 'suspended' for the years 2023 and 2024 the two-yearly update of fines provided for in the Highway Code, 'not cancelled it. In theory, therefore, the fines could now be adjusted not only with respect to the change in the consumer price index for blue- and white-collar households of the last two years, but the two previous years, from 2020 to 2022, could also be recovered'. If this interpretation prevails, considering the latest available Foi index, that of September 2024, 'the jump would even reach 17.6 per cent'.