Unapproved speed cameras: the Ministry’s amnesty does not settle the appeals
The ministerial decree setting out the requirements for type-approval ‘promotes in practice’ the meters approved since 2017, but leaves room for doubt
Key points
Pending the publication in the Official Gazette of the ministerial decree of 8 June on the type-approval of speed cameras, one wonders whether it will actually serve to make legally usable those devices that were simply approved under the immediately preceding legislation (Ministerial Decree No. 282 of 13 June 2017). For now, the only thing that is certain is that the new Ministerial Decree will apply only to offences detected from the date it comes into force, which Article 7 of the text sets as the day following its publication.
The issue
To date, no speed detection devices have been type-approved in Italia: the Ministry of Infrastructure has only granted approvals. However, the Supreme Court’s ruling No. 10505 of 18 April 2024 established clearly and precisely that the Highway Code requires type-approval, which is a more complex process than mere authorisation. And subsequent rulings by the Court, with rare exceptions, have shown that this is now a well-established line of case law, followed even by trial judges. Consequently, an appeal based on the lack of type-approval now has a very high probability of being upheld at first instance.
The ‘amnesty’
The new Ministerial Decree sets out the administrative procedure leading to type-approval, more than 33 years after the Code came into force, whilst also setting out the technical requirements that the devices must meet. Article 6 of the decree introduces a fast-track procedure for those devices already in use – and obviously lacking type-approval – that meet certain requirements: those laid down by the Ministerial Decree of 2017. These devices are deemed to be directly type-approved.
Their names, as set out in the Ministerial Decree itself, are:
AUTOVELOX 106, approved by Executive Decree No. 476 of 9 December 2025,
