You arrive at your vehicle parked on the street, and suddenly you find the typical paper clipped with the windshield wiper. What happened? No, it is not advertising. This is a fine. And when we find the ticket in the car itself, or an agent hands it to us, it is obvious that we have been denounced but,how can we find out if we have any fine from, for example, a radar?
In most cases, the fault of not being able to notify us correctly is ours. Further, Traffic can fine you if a different address appears in its database than the one you really have. That's right, just as traffic has the duty to notify infringements correctly and in due time, our duty is to notify the corresponding administration of changes in our usual address, that is, the place where we want the notifications to reach us. You will be doing Many questions, so let's solve them.
Follow these steps to find out if you have been fined
Yes, a traffic ticket is always a concern. Although we circulate in the best possible way, it is impossible to know at all times if we have complied with the law to the last detail.
But the DGT has eight Pegasus helicopters, and an endless number of patrols distributed along the roads of our geography to try to avoid any type of inappropriate behavior or irregularity in the vehicles. For example, they are able to check from the air the validity of the ITV of your vehicle, or if you have the mandatory insurance in force. Since much of the surveillance is done from the air, it may be the case that at some point we do not know if we have been fined or not, and in the vast majority of cases it is not an option to wait for the fine to arrive, because if it does not arrive we would find a nice embargo on our bank account. It may also be the case that the fine is filed and never arrives, but it is not common.
How to know if you have fines
Nowadays and thanks to the internet we have it easier than ever, because from the sofa at home we can check it easily and quickly.
Currently there are a large number of companies whose main purpose is to appeal fines and which, among other services, allow us to know if we have a traffic fine of which we are not aware. All the procedure is done online, and in addition, it is a procedure that will not cost you anything: it is completely free. Its operation is based on consulting the traffic databases and the BOE if there is any sanction associated with a specific vehicle and / or driver.
In addition, this service can be extended with a subscription (paid, of course), which will allow us to be informed via e-mail when a fine is published in our name. But sticking to the main topic, two of the websites that work best for this purpose are www.buscamultas.es y www.tienesmultas.es.
Besides working really well, they are the most reliable and easy to use. Its operation is based on entering both the vehicle registration and the ID of the owner or habitual driver, and the system will show us if there are violations for said data.
TESTRA
Although you should also know that the DGT has, since 2010, what they call TESTRA (Edictal Board of Traffic Sanctions), which is nothing more than a data bank where is a record of offenses committed since then, whether imposed by the same DGT, town councils, or the Catalan Traffic Service.
Although we have to know that the TESTRA is a valid method to notify the sanction only if the DGT does not have an address to send it to by certified mail, or if after two shipments, the fine has not been collected in neither attempt. This is good to know since if we are in the case in which a sanction is published in the TESTRA but previously it has not been tried to send by mail at least two times, you would have a reason to appeal it and win, since it will not have been notified of correct way.
To check if you have any pending sanctions in the TESTRA, you will only have to follow the following steps:
- Access the DGT Electronic Headquarters.
- Click on the Edictal Notice of Traffic Sanctions.
- Then select the option testra
- Later we choose the option How to consult TESTRA and click on Consult the bulletin board
- In this step we can already enter the driver's DNI or the vehicle's registration, accessing the possible infractions that there are for it.
If we know we have a old fine but we are sure that we have not received it or we have not been notified correctly, we can see also the TESTRA to check its processing status. It never hurts to use any of these tools to stay calm and be sure that we do not have any pending traffic offenses, which as we mentioned at the beginning, can be an embargo. And all without leaving home.
But above all, and to ensure that we are not fined, the most important thing is drive responsibly and be careful, being respectful of the limits and with the other users of the road, and complying with the laws at all times.