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I drove a Hertz vehicle in Germany. Two weeks later, back home, I got a letter from a German town/municipality with a speeding fine. Included is a photo from th

I drove a Hertz vehicle in Germany. Two weeks later, back home, I got a letter from a German town/municipality with a speeding fine. Included is a photo from the camera... the person in the photo is not me, and the timestamp is days after my rental finished. Thankfully, they resolved it with a couple of (very confused) phone calls. Sounds like I got lucky.

sideshowb 7y ago
I rented one in Italy. Two weeks later hertz charged me an admin fee for passing my details to the police - apparently we'd been flashed by a speed camera, no idea where. Police never got in touch though, which makes me wonder if it was all a ruse. I'm not exactly going to chase up the police to find out.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  You should though, if you ever plan on visiting Europe again, before an EU-wide notice is put out for you and you get arrested at the airport until you pay the fine and costs...
  - HatchedLake721 7y ago
    It doesn’t work this way in EU, no one’s going to arrest you at the airport for unpaid speeding ticket. All you will get is nuisance from debt collectors and possible additional penalties.l, that’s it.
    - mschuster91 7y ago
      Of course you can be arrested. It's called Zwangsvollstreckung in Germany, and they can even seize property from you ("Pfändung"). Thanks to an EU agreement this is also valid for traffic tickets now.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - karambahh 7y ago
        Afaik, German authorities would have to issue a warrant to Europol to actually have you arrested in another EU country. (And I don't see them actually looking for you for a mere parking ticket...) What EU countries start to do is sharing the license plates files between countries. I got a (non registered) letter in the mail 3 years ago from the federal police force in Belgium with no easy way to pay the fine (related to a speeding offense which I recognise I most likely did commit). Got them on the phone once but it came to nothing. (If a belgian cop reads this: I'm more than willing to pay :) ). Interestingly, at the time, belgian plates caught speeding in France were not contacted so the agreement or its technical implementation were not reciprocal. I also received a parking fine from Brussels city, which made payment simple & efficient via a SEPA transfer. Europe is far less integrated than US HN users seem to think. Countries are sovereign, they simply choose to collaborate on parts of their legal framework, parts which can be different on a country by country basis. For instance, Schengen (freedom of movement for visa holders of a member country, generally no border controls between them) is 22 EU countries PLUS Switzerland, Norway & others. Members still have the ability to reinstate full border controls if need be (was the case during the terrorist attacks in France & Belgium in 2015/2016). License plates schemes and vehicles insurances (ironically, insurance certificate are called "green cards"...) are valid amongst the Council of Europe members (basically all of geographical Europe, Russia & Turkey included)
        paganel 7y ago
        > What EU countries start to do is sharing the license plates files between countries. Just wanted to add that this license plate integration is going at full speed. My brother is a truck driver who carries stuff to Western Europe once every 2-3 weeks or so (we live in Romania). About a month ago he received a speeding ticket from the French authorities, translated in Romanian and with a photo of his face as he was driving the truck. The interesting thing was that the fine was sent to his home/personal address, even though the truck is owned by my brother's employer, not by my brother directly. So on top of making the license plate/owner connection, it seems that for stuff like trucks some traffic authorities also have information about the private details of the drivers operating those trucks.
  - sideshowb 7y ago
    I live in Europe. If Hertz's charge was genuine, then the police had valid contact details for me for at least a year, and didn't get in touch - I can't see that being my responsibility.
- tsbinz 7y ago
  I don’t know how long ago this was, but Italy is notorious for taking a long time to deliver tickets (like, a year because that’s how long they are allowed to take). If it’s a small fine they might just decide that it’s not worth it.
- HatchedLake721 7y ago
  It can take over a year to get a speeding fine abroad from Italy, personal experience.
  - sideshowb 7y ago
    Interesting. Quite a few years ago now though.
hannob 7y ago
Had something very similar: Rented an Europcar van in Copenhagen, I got a parking ticket for the night before I rented the car in front of the Europcar office. I answered them and tried to explain it, they haven't contacted me since then, but they didn't even bother to apologize. Seems to be pretty common these days...
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Yeah, that can happen; I'm afraid a lot of the processes at car rental firms are still manual labor. Always keep the documents around for at least a year after renting a car; those are your evidence, and they can match them up with their internal records. (And they'll be the primary counter-evidence if they messed up said internal records)
woliveirajr 7y ago
Travelling abroad for the first time, Hertz got me a GPS that didn't work (no, smart phones were almost non-existent back then and portable GPS was shinning new in cars). When I finally found a Hertz store in another city, they had a long time to replace it because the rental wasn't found in the system and, for Hertz, it was not possible that I was with their car.

sideshowb 7y ago

I rented one in Italy. Two weeks later hertz charged me an admin fee for passing my details to the police - apparently we'd been flashed by a speed camera, no idea where. Police never got in touch though, which makes me wonder if it was all a ruse. I'm not exactly going to chase up the police to find out.

mschuster91 7y ago
You should though, if you ever plan on visiting Europe again, before an EU-wide notice is put out for you and you get arrested at the airport until you pay the fine and costs...
- HatchedLake721 7y ago
  It doesn’t work this way in EU, no one’s going to arrest you at the airport for unpaid speeding ticket. All you will get is nuisance from debt collectors and possible additional penalties.l, that’s it.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    Of course you can be arrested. It's called Zwangsvollstreckung in Germany, and they can even seize property from you ("Pfändung"). Thanks to an EU agreement this is also valid for traffic tickets now.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - karambahh 7y ago
      Afaik, German authorities would have to issue a warrant to Europol to actually have you arrested in another EU country. (And I don't see them actually looking for you for a mere parking ticket...) What EU countries start to do is sharing the license plates files between countries. I got a (non registered) letter in the mail 3 years ago from the federal police force in Belgium with no easy way to pay the fine (related to a speeding offense which I recognise I most likely did commit). Got them on the phone once but it came to nothing. (If a belgian cop reads this: I'm more than willing to pay :) ). Interestingly, at the time, belgian plates caught speeding in France were not contacted so the agreement or its technical implementation were not reciprocal. I also received a parking fine from Brussels city, which made payment simple & efficient via a SEPA transfer. Europe is far less integrated than US HN users seem to think. Countries are sovereign, they simply choose to collaborate on parts of their legal framework, parts which can be different on a country by country basis. For instance, Schengen (freedom of movement for visa holders of a member country, generally no border controls between them) is 22 EU countries PLUS Switzerland, Norway & others. Members still have the ability to reinstate full border controls if need be (was the case during the terrorist attacks in France & Belgium in 2015/2016). License plates schemes and vehicles insurances (ironically, insurance certificate are called "green cards"...) are valid amongst the Council of Europe members (basically all of geographical Europe, Russia & Turkey included)
      - paganel 7y ago
        > What EU countries start to do is sharing the license plates files between countries. Just wanted to add that this license plate integration is going at full speed. My brother is a truck driver who carries stuff to Western Europe once every 2-3 weeks or so (we live in Romania). About a month ago he received a speeding ticket from the French authorities, translated in Romanian and with a photo of his face as he was driving the truck. The interesting thing was that the fine was sent to his home/personal address, even though the truck is owned by my brother's employer, not by my brother directly. So on top of making the license plate/owner connection, it seems that for stuff like trucks some traffic authorities also have information about the private details of the drivers operating those trucks.
- sideshowb 7y ago
  I live in Europe. If Hertz's charge was genuine, then the police had valid contact details for me for at least a year, and didn't get in touch - I can't see that being my responsibility.
tsbinz 7y ago
I don’t know how long ago this was, but Italy is notorious for taking a long time to deliver tickets (like, a year because that’s how long they are allowed to take). If it’s a small fine they might just decide that it’s not worth it.
HatchedLake721 7y ago
It can take over a year to get a speeding fine abroad from Italy, personal experience.
- sideshowb 7y ago
  Interesting. Quite a few years ago now though.

hannob 7y ago

Had something very similar: Rented an Europcar van in Copenhagen, I got a parking ticket for the night before I rented the car in front of the Europcar office. I answered them and tried to explain it, they haven't contacted me since then, but they didn't even bother to apologize. Seems to be pretty common these days...

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

Yeah, that can happen; I'm afraid a lot of the processes at car rental firms are still manual labor. Always keep the documents around for at least a year after renting a car; those are your evidence, and they can match them up with their internal records. (And they'll be the primary counter-evidence if they messed up said internal records)

woliveirajr 7y ago

Travelling abroad for the first time, Hertz got me a GPS that didn't work (no, smart phones were almost non-existent back then and portable GPS was shinning new in cars). When I finally found a Hertz store in another city, they had a long time to replace it because the rental wasn't found in the system and, for Hertz, it was not possible that I was with their car.