(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 20 - The Senate on Wednesday gave definitive approval to Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini's reform of the Highway Code.
    The law, which had already been approved by the Lower House, passed with 83 votes in favour, 47 against and one abstention.
    It stiffens the penalties for using mobile phones at the wheel, with fines of between 250 and 1,000 euros and a driving ban of a week if you already have points in your licence.
    This can go up to a three-month ban and a fine of 1,400 euros for repeat offenders.
    The fines and bans double if the use of the telephone causes an accident.
    Under the reform, it will be possible for speeding fines to go up as high as 880 euros for people who break the speed limit inside cities twice a year or more and they face having their licence suspended for 15 to 30 days.
    The penalties for driving under the influence of alcohol goes from a fine of between 573 and 2,170 euros and a licence suspension of three to six months if the blood alcohol levels is between 0.5 and 0.8 grams per litre.
    People with blood alcohol levels between 0.8 and 1.5 grams per litre risk a fine of up to 3,200 euros, a driving ban of between six months and a year and a jail term of six months.
    If the level is over 1.5 grams, the fine can go as high as 6,000 euros, the driving ban up to two years and the jail term up to one year.
    There is also the obligation to install a breath alcohol ignition interlock device after getting the licence back.
    People caught driving under the influence of drugs face bans of up to three years. The bill obliges motorists to respect a distance of 1.5 metres when overtaking cyclists.
    Users of e-scooters will be obliged to wear helmets, have a number plate and get insurance - although subsequent legislation will set out the details on this.
    It will not be possible for local authorities to issue motorists with more than one speeding fine for repeated breaches that come within an hour of each other.
    If there is more than one, the motorist must pay only the biggest fine, plus a third. People who abandon animals at a road side face losing their licences for between six months and a year and they risk seven years in jail if an accident is caused by the abandoned animal.
    Salvini on Wednesday said his reform will reduce road deaths in Italy.
    "The new Highway Code is finally law", Salvini said, commenting on the Senate's vote that gave it definitive approval.
    "More security and prevention, fight against abuse and incorrect behaviour, updated rules and true road education", he wrote on social media.
    The reform, wrote the minister, was drafted after lengthy talks with associations, local institutions, representatives of the automotive sector and experts "with a common objective: reducing massacres on Italian roads", he wrote, denying "fake news" on huge fines for speeding.
    However, consumer association Codacons said Wednesday that the reform could prove useless without an increase in traffic policing.
    "The crackdown on the use of cell phones behind the wheel, driving under the influence and the measures regarding e-scooters are, together, positive initiatives but risk not producing the desired effect on road safety", said the group's president Carlo Rienzi.
    He recalled ISTAT's figures on the first semester of this year, compared to the same period in 2023, showing a 0.9% increase in the number of road accidents with injuries and a 4% rise in road deaths with a 7.9% peak in fatal road accidents in urban centres, "which would require utmost vigilance", he said.
    Meanwhile, members of the centre-left opposition criticized the reform as "short-sighted" and "merely a slogan".
    Democratic Senator Lorenzo Basso said it sent a "dangerous message: it is possible to speed, to risk, rules can be violated without paying the consequences".
    He called the reform "short sighted and anachronistic" noting that it limited "the use of technology to register speed, a fundamental tool to save lives, especially in urban areas", among other things. The Five-Star Movement whip in the Senate's transport commission Gabriella Di Girolamo, said the reform was merely a "slogan" with few concrete measures to improve road safety.
    Di Girolamo also criticized the fact that a highly needed crackdown on those driving under the influence "is substantially transformed into a ban on using any type of medicine".
    "Those forced to take commonly used medicines like paracetamol will actually not be able to drive", according to the Senator.
    (ANSA).