Italian Tolls.....still laughing

[MR. FUSION]

I am only taking 2 toll roads in Italy in my sub 3.5 ton moho so why would I bother getting a pass?
Well my experience so far in 120 miles Milan to Turin:
Depart Milan:
1st toll a telepass only one, with one smallish sign about paying at the website within 16 days, which I completely missed between keeping us alive & navigating & reading the confusing speed limit signs.....I replayed the footage from my dashcam later (glad I bought the 125 GB Card!) & found it. There were a few smaller non descript signs later on with pictures of money on & telepass. Nothing like say going over the Dartford crossing & all that information about paying. Cost €2.10 which I expect multiplies exponentially if you didnt spot all this or have some prior knowledge about this system.
2nd toll €3.50 at an automated toll machine, with no ticket required & no information about what you just paid for IMHO It is entirely possible having no knowledge of the 1st toll system above you could assume you just paid for that 1st journey not just only the second part.
3rd toll machine, take a ticket.
4th automated toll machine, put ticket in & pay €17.50 drove another mile or so......
5th toll machine a real person with their hand out for €1.50
Arrived at Turin.....laughing

 

[Coastal Cruiser.]

We went Venice to Florence all tolls and it was about €21.
Today have gone Florence to somewhere up in the mountains
Anyways about 260 miles away mostly tolls and it was €16 for one bit and €11 for the other so bit of a no brainier trying to fight across Italy without tolls.
And we are 7.5t so probably a higher toll level than 3.5t?

 

[MR. FUSION]

We went Venice to Florence all tolls and it was about €21.
Today have gone Florence to somewhere up in the mountains
Anyways about 260 miles away mostly tolls and it was €16 for one bit and €11 for the other so bit of a no brainier trying to fight across Italy without tolls.
And we are 7.5t so probably a higher toll level than 3.5t?

I love taking the French D roads (generally in OK condition & mostly not too busy) to see more of France & avoid the tolls , I would not contemplate doing that in Italy . As you say partly because of the fighting & last time I was here the main roads were in an appauling condition in places.
As for charges I read its on axle height ??

 

[David and Sally]

Not sure they would be able to do you now DVLA are not giving out info. Mind you, you could probably not go back into Italy

 

[Barryh]

Whenever we have ventured too far off the toll roads when transiting in Italy it has always become a bit of a toil. So we generally stick to the toll roads. One year, just outside Florence, we managed to go badly off route and we had to reverse down a steep and minute country track onto a “major” trunk road causing traffic to back up for what seemed miles. If it wasn’t for a fellow Italian motorhomer blocking the carriageway for us we would probably still be there. Lots of interesting gestures from the locals.

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[Coastal Cruiser.]

Lots of interesting gestures from the locals

Probably commenting on your reversing skills

 

[activecampers]

Hmmm.
We normally avoid tolls, not because we don't want to pay, but because we like the backroads. Last time in Italy (N-S-N) we didn't have issues
We're likely to be cutting W-E shortly bumbling around with no set route or destination. Hadn't considered it an issue?
Happy to hear more on what its like......

 

[MR. FUSION]

Hmmm.
We normally avoid tolls, not because we don't want to pay, but because we like the backroads. Last time in Italy (N-S-N) we didn't have issues
We're likely to be cutting W-E shortly bumbling around with no set route or destination. Hadn't considered it an issue?
Happy to hear more on what its like......

I can only comment on the towns, which generally have pot holes & the drains & around the drains are crumbling pretty badly, so hitting one of those could be a show stopper, particularly if you dont have a full spare. The toll roads seemed very good.

 

[Barryh]

There is a good technique on some roads, including the tolls, of driving over the white lines on the off side (or drivers side on rhd) to avoid the pot holes in the tramlines.

 

[MR. FUSION]

There is a good technique on some roads, including the tolls, of driving over the white lines on the off side (or drivers side on rhd) to avoid the pot holes in the tramlines.But what about the drains

Not sure about that, as some of the drains on that side I have seen are about 1 foot down in a hole

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[Jackd]

This week we drove from the lakes down to Genoa on the coast.
Our intention was to avoid the tolls & take the scenic route. After 30 or 40 miles we gave up and hit the tolls. The roads were gonna do some lasting damage if we had kept going.

 

[nicholsong]

Today's story about trying to register for the >3.5t e-Toll (replacing ViaToll) system in Poland.

After about 2 hours including 4 phone calls to the help line, intially in English until the next page appeared in Polish and refused Google translate's efforts, so Basia had to take over and make the phone calls to the helpline. The help desk eventually gave up and said we had to go to one of their agents' offices for identification(?)

They also said that they could not find our registration number on the system - at which point I said to Basia 'So they cannot charge us', but she thinks that we should register, after which they may still not be able to charge us.

All this is to register for pre-paid way to pay them money Oh Please!.

Watch this space tomorrow.

Geoff

 

[Aji]

I had forgotten how many tunnels there are in Italy.

 

[MR. FUSION]

This week we drove from the lakes down to Genoa on the coast.
Our intention was to avoid the tolls & take the scenic route. After 30 or 40 miles we gave up and hit the tolls. The roads were gonna do some lasting damage if we had kept going.

Thanks for confirming my theory, I was not even going to try!!

 

[MR. FUSION]

Today's story about trying to register for the >3.5t e-Toll (replacing ViaToll) system in Poland.

After about 2 hours including 4 phone calls to the help line, intially in English until the next page appeared in Polish and refused Google translate's efforts, so Basia had to take over and make the phone calls to the helpline. The help desk eventually gave up and said we had to go to one of their agents' offices for identification(?)

They also said that they could not find our registration number on the system - at which point I said to Basia 'So they cannot charge us', but she thinks that we should register, after which they may still not be able to charge us.

All this is to register for pre-paid way to pay them money Oh Please!.

Watch this space tomorrow.

Geoff

I did my best in Portugal in 2016, the automated border camera system refused to register my plate, so I contacted them through the machine & gave them my reg & details, still never got charged!

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[nicholsong]

Today's story about trying to register for the >3.5t e-Toll (replacing ViaToll) system in Poland.

After about 2 hours including 4 phone calls to the help line, intially in English until the next page appeared in Polish and refused Google translate's efforts, so Basia had to take over and make the phone calls to the helpline. The help desk eventually gave up and said we had to go to one of their agents' offices for identification(?)

They also said that they could not find our registration number on the system - at which point I said to Basia 'So they cannot charge us', but she thinks that we should register, after which they may still not be able to charge us.

All this is to register for pre-paid way to pay them money Oh Please!.

Watch this space tomorrow.

Geoff

To continue the story.

We went 10km out of town to an e-Toll agent, namely a BP filling station whose cash desk was in the Shop with a coffee bar, so the guy who was the Agent had a 'Barista' t-shirt - why not?

He took over our application from where we were blocked yesterday. He got us registered in the system and then we wanted to add some pre-paid cash and we asked if we wanted automatic top-up, which I declined. Later found one cannot top-up on-line but only at their agents. He tried to change it but the system refused.

He was helpful but still the process took 1/2 hour and with the drive back and forth, so meant 1 hour on top of yesterday's 2 hours.

We have now discovered that our route to the German border near Goerlitz, which was only charged for a short strip at £4 each way, will now be charged the whole way at a return trip cost of approx. £55. I reckon our 3 short trips this year will cost us about £250 on Polish major roads alone, and there are not good alternatives like France. OK we save £165 on UK VED for >3,5t MH, but it will start to add up over the years.

Hey Ho!