Ralph Gardner Jr. finds out the hard way that you can’t outrun traffic and parking tickets incurred far from home
Among the philosophical questions New Yorkers tackle—Does God exist? If my kid doesn’t get into Brown is his life ruined?—here’s one of the most seemingly inscrutable: If I incur a traffic ticket in Los Angeles or Rome, will it come back to haunt me here?
The answer, I discovered, depends on your definition of haunt.
My own efforts to solve the puzzle began when I received official-looking correspondence in November 2014 under the letterhead of “Corpo De Polizia Locale Di Roma Capitale”. It came decorated with a gold-crowned red crest that said “+SPQR”.
Even though the missive was in English, it took a moment or two to comprehend its contents. Apparently, while in Rome more than a year earlier, and after renting a car at Hertz, I’d strayed into a lane reserved for buses on the way back to our hotel to pick up my family. The infraction had been detected by some sort of “device.”
I felt frankly flummoxed, almost sideswiped, by the summons. As anybody who has ever retrieved a rental car in a foreign capital knows, there are few times in life when one feels so utterly at sea. The streets and boulevards are alien, the traffic signs inscrutable, the customs of fellow motorists and pedestrians mysterious until they pull some stunt that forces you to hit the brakes.
My ardent belief was that Rome should have given me the key to the city for not running anybody over on my way out of town.
‘You can’t come from another state and park where you want.’
Besides, it was a sleepy Sunday. The roads were virtually deserted. There were no Roman motorists whose lead I could follow.
My inclination was to throw the fine in the trash. It was €88.23 ($96.49) if paid within five days, or €112.23 within 60 days.
In the meantime, I also got a parking ticket in Los Angeles. While I had put money in a meter opposite the Los Angeles County Museum, part of the car apparently poked into a “red zone”—painted “no parking” curb markings that have no correspondence on New York City streets.
“You can’t come from another state and park where you want,” a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department told me, while demurring to address repercussions should I ignore the ticket. “Are they going to fly some people out there? I don’t know.” I paid the ticket.
How about a one-time goodwill pass for ignorant out-of-towners?
But what might the consequences be if I neglected to pay the Roman ticket? They’d already tracked me down in New York. Did they have some sister-city deal with the Big Apple allowing them to impound my car? If I incurred a subsequent violation the next time I was in Rome could I be tossed in the slammer?
Even though the summons used words and phrases such as “compulsory” and “cannot be appealed,” it included an information phone number in Italy and the promise of a staff able to communicate in English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
So I decided to call.
While my hope was to get the charges dismissed, the larger motive was to discover what, if any, punishment awaited me, should I fail to pay up.
A businesslike receptionist, speaking flawless English, stressed that becoming a scofflaw “does not have any consequences.” She assured me that my tourist dollars would continue to be welcomed in Rome.
“In the worst case,” she went on, “if you don’t pay the fine, it will not compromise your travel to Italy or your stay.”
However, she did offer me this warning: “The only risk is the debt collection agency.”
I decided not to pay on principle and began hearing from American debt collectors about a year later. Letters. Phone calls. They even called my mother.
When I finally returned their call on Friday—my wife was concerned our credit rating would come crashing down—the fine had grown to $305.51.
An operator at the collection agency said that failure to pay would have no effect on my ability to refinance a mortgage or get a bank loan. But he added, “In the same way it gets escalated in the U.S. it will get escalated in Italy.”
“All over Europe,” he went on. “The EU. They communicate. Thirty-two countries.”
The last time I checked the EU had only 28 members. Nonetheless, I finally capitulated and paid up, having no desire to spend time in a Bulgarian prison the next time I’m abroad.
Write to Ralph Gardner Jr. at ralph.gardner@wsj.com