On June 18^th, the Constitutional Court, declaring as unlawful the Article 45, par. 6, of the Italian “Road Traffic Law”, has issued the judgement no. 113/2015, thus opening the way to new hope for drivers who have been fined.

The Court stated that speed cameras as well as all the others measuring speed electronic machines - provided for in the aforementioned law provision - shall be periodically reviewed, in so far as they are subject to obsolescence and/or deterioration.

Otherwise, until today, several sections of the Italian Supreme Court did not agree with this judgement, believing that speed cameras do not need to be periodically reviewed, since the calibration verification regards physical measuring and not the speed one.

This opinion has been declared as unreasonable, because it does not take into the right account that “obsolescence and deterioration phenomena may undermine not only the speed cameras’ reliability but also public’s trust, that is laid in a increasingly important social sector, as the one of road safety ”. Given this, “the functioning and precision of speed measures - as ensured by a periodical revision of both speed electronic machines and speed cameras - should be concomitant at the moment in which the speed is measured”.

The verification, in order to review and calibrate speed cameras and similar electronic machines, is mandatory for all the types of speed cameras, with respect both to fixed and mobile ones; the above is not irrelevant.

First of all a distinction needs to be drawn between such types of speed cameras: the first ones are usually located at pre-determined positions on the road, working in complete autonomy; differently, mobile speed machines are placed by Road Traffic Police officers, which supervise their correct functioning.

Previously, the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, according to the Ministerial Decree dated October 29^th 1997, stated that speed cameras do not need to be reviewed if their functioning is controlled by police patrols. The Constitutional Court rejected this differentiation, declaring the mandatory review also with reference to fixed and controlled speed cameras.

It is clear that the risk of irregularity due to lack of revision is more frequent for the controlled ones: a person who receive a fine should verify the type of speed cameras that measured his car’s speed, if it was a mobile or a fixed one; in the first case, the person should also verify if the verbal recorded the last revision date.

As concerns the direct benefits to drivers fined by a speed camera, it has to be highlighted that they could request the Municipality to prove the compliance of speed cameras with the mandatory revision, with particular reference to the fines both already received or the future ones. This solution has been offered by Codacons, that inserted in its own website a fac-simile written warning to be sent to Municipalities, giving by this way material effectiveness to the judgement of the Constitutional Court.