Speeding in Switzerland

In these days of all paperwork being computer generated, you would think they would have an English version of the letter to send to a UK address :roll: (especially given our pechant for foreign languages) :lol:

Trencher

Dave Mac wrote:Skiing at 55kph would not not qualify as speeding.

Oooh, double negative.
On some slopes around the world, it would most definitely qualify as speeding, and in fact in America on certain pistes you would be thrown off.

Mike3000 wrote:Hi all,

This is kind of on topic because lots of us drive when going skiing even if only in hire cars from the airport.

Anyway, yesterday I got a letter (in French so I don't fully understand it yet) telling me i was caught on camera speeding on a Swiss motorway (Geneva to Zermatt). The offense was in March 08 yes 08. There were two of us in the car and we were both insured to drive and did take turns so who knows who was driving!

Does anyone have experience of this? I have a feeling if I don't own up and pay up I will get arrested next time I go through Geneva airport which happens to be in two weeks time.

Any ideas?

I'd be careful with this one as the bas*ards, sorry Swiss border guards again decided to stop and search my car just over a week ago , not just happy with that they then took both parts of my driving license and ran a search on it, now they might have just taken it away and had a cup of tea and brought it back, but knowing the Swiss they would have ran a check. So if you intend to return to the land of the incredibly rude swiss border control persons I'd consider paying the fine. :evil:

Which crossing were you at Wickers? You do know they have no sense of humour by now, and they have guns :shock: Did you have a Vignette?

Post Schengen, British tourists are now the outsiders in western Europe. Switzerland is not an EU country, but has joined Schengen. We should all expect more of the same, unfortunately.

BTW to Mike 3000, our household does have direct experience of Swiss speeding fines, and we paid up. It´s a sport for the swiss citizen, radio stations give out locations of GATSO style cameras and the mobile speed guns, but it´s illegal to have a GPS database of camera locations on your Sat Nav in Switzerland, so take care if you have one.

bandit wrote:Which crossing were you at Wickers? You do know they have no sense of humour by now, and they have guns :shock: Did you have a Vignette?

Post Schengen, British tourists are now the outsiders in western Europe. Switzerland is not an EU country, but has joined Schengen. We should all expect more of the same, unfortunately.

I am very polite when I visit other countries and I would expect the same respect back as I give out, now I have to be fair that this guy was not particularly rude but he was on a mission not happy on just searching my car and bags the license check was just taking it too far. I was not using the motorways so I did not require a Vignette but purchased one when I entered back into Switzerland on the home leg of our journey, we entered at Tirano and was then gonna travel a few miles into Switzerland and then back into Italy at the Forcola pass and then onto Livigno, all of which was explained at the border post.
Again if Switzerland are gonna make my family and I unwelcome in their country I just will not travel though or holiday again in Switzerland, by the way at Le Grand st Bernard pass border point about five years ago I was asked many unnecessary questions before I could enter Switzerland and all the time the kn*b had his hand rested on his gun, obviously in an attempt to unnerve, it is just totally unacceptable for Border officers to behave in this way.

Anybody unaware of the schengen treaty here is a link.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement

How very dramatic Ian.
I drove straight through Switzerland without a single hitch, apart from the stupid German police trying to sell us Vignettes at inflated prices in all sorts of currencies. They thought they were in the East I think.

Again if Switzerland are gonna make my family and I unwelcome in their country I just will not travel though or holiday again in Switzerland, by the way at Le Grand st Bernard pass border point about five years ago I was asked many unnecessary questions before I could enter Switzerland and all the time the kn*b had his hand rested on his gun, obviously in an attempt to unnerve, it is just totally unacceptable for Border officers to behave in this way.

Maybe he was just waiting for the toys that you obviously threw out the pram :twisted:

Jeez, I don't think I have been through a border where the guards aren't pissy. Apart from maybe at Glasgow where the guards are just pissed.

Seriously though, if I stopped visiting the countries where I had been asked many unnecessary questions on entry I don't think I'd leave the EU ever again,