The Quickshift
- There's been an ongoing problem with speed cameras scattered across Italy, with road users being fined large amounts of money.
- One particular speed cam managed to amass more than $1 million USD in the span of three years.
- Italy's Transport Ministry is rolling out strict regulations against the installation of additional speed cameras moving forward.
CCTV cameras and other surveillance equipment on public roads are understandably a touchy subject for quite a few people. Not only because of the potential breach of privacy but also because of how these devices might be exploited by certain groups of individuals.
In the US, speed cameras, for example, are a thing that not all states agree on, with a good number of states enforcing laws that prohibit the use of speed cameras. But over in Europe, it seems that speed cameras are a much more common thing. In fact, it would seem that some of these speed cameras have the intention of making money from erring road users, rather than actually keeping them safe.
This is exactly what seems to be going on in the otherwise quiet town of Colle Santa Lucia in the province of Belluno in Italy. This picturesque town is quaint and appears to have been taken directly out of a postcard or a screensaver for your grandma’s PC, with twisty, undulating roads surrounded by lush meadows. It looks pretty peaceful.
But it’s hiding a secret.
In one of the town’s popular mountain passes called the Passo Giau, a single speed camera has made a whopping 1,265,822 euros (about $1,384,373 USD) from 2021 to 2023 through fines alone. Popular among tourists, the Passo Giau has a speed limit of 50 kilometers per hour (31 miles per hour), but given just how many folks have been fined over the years, it’s obvious that this speed limit is way too low for it to make sense.
Making things even more crazy is the fact that Colle Santa Lucia only has 353 registered residents, so if you do the math, that’s around $3,585 euros per head in speeding tickets alone.
Pretty crazy, if you ask me.
With all that being said, there’s no denying that something’s wrong, and it’s good to know that the authorities are taking action regarding the matter. In fact, the Italian Transport Minister Matteo Salvini recently announced a new regulation to limit the proliferation of speed cameras in Italy.
For starters, hidden speed cameras will be banned, and road users need to be notified of the presence of upcoming speed cameras moving forward. More importantly, local authorities will have to justify the installation of speed cameras, using real-world data such as traffic analytics and accident data.
But for the residents and tourists of Colle Santa Lucia, who’ve lost thousands of euros in seemingly unjust speeding tickets, this may all be too little, too late. But if there’s one ray of hope here, it’s that it seems this particular speed cam is no longer in operation. A report by Italian Insider states that the speed camera at the Passo Giau was destroyed in January of 2024.
Personally, I have no issue with speed cameras provided that motorists are informed ahead of time regarding their presence. Here in the Philippines, speed cameras litter the freeways, but road users are made well aware of their presence, with navigation apps such as Waze even alerting drivers of their presence hundreds of meters beforehand.
It’s when authorities use speed cameras to get the upper hand on road users and make a quick buck that they become objectively wrong.
