Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Driving in Switzerland

A timely warning to anyone coming to Switzerland for their holidays, speed cameras are breeding like flies, most are mobile and are hidden in roadworks, tunnels and amongst trees, there are even small camper vans bristling with cameras. Swiss drivers like to travel at or above the speed limit and will polish your rear bumper at 120kph if you are in their way. Another thing to be careful of are pedestrian crossings on exits to roundabouts, with pedestrians just wandering onto them playing with their phones. In the years I have lived here touring in the mountains has gone from being a pleasure to having lunatics treating the mountain roads like race tracks and seem to hate having anyone in front of them. Put them on a real race track and they would c... themselves.

My employer has its European HQ in St Gallen, so I'm there every 6 to 8 weeks.
All my colleagues tell me "use the cruise control and don't speed"
Seems the fine can be as much as a Months pay, before tax. OUCH!!

England seems to have ever more speed cameras too. Somehow I always seem to get a fine when I am in the UK. Despite having a satnav that gives warnings I often find myself slightly over the limit. I am just keeping my fingers crossed for the recent visit.

I am amazed at how fast English drivers drive. I guess they must know where the cameras are.

New Volvo has a speed limiter which I use now and again - press a button on the steering wheel to set maximum speed - press accelerator peddle fully to over ride in an emergency.


Can't see it making onto the Morgan option list though.

Peter,
County Durham HAS NO SPEED CAMERAS only mobile ones

Northamptonshire's static cameras are all turned off as no-one can afford to pay for them.

There is one mobile van.

Roadworks on the M1 and a14 are live cameras.

Much the same in Wiltshire, they have one or two vans that sit on the main trumk roads.

Salisbury Police station is to close, at weekends Police presence is wafer thin. I was told that at times there can be as few as 4 traffic cars on duty covering all of Wiltshire...1300 sq miles.

I recently had to spend 5 months going to close by St Gallen 3 or 4 times a week, mainly on the motorway between Bern and Zurich, the speed limits and camera positions were moved daily and sometimes hourly, supposedly to aid traffic flow, a bit of a waste of time using the speed limiter as you would spend half the journey resetting it. Don't know what it is like in the UK now but most other drivers would in the past warn you of a camera etc. Never seen that here, road manners and courtesy don't seem to exist here, never a thank you or similar. I was recently looking on one of the local forums re. driving and drivers were working out the percentage the speedo was out by and the percentage you are allowed over the speed limit and things like you were safe doing 126 in a 120 limit were discussed. Where is the pleasure in driving when you are looking at the speedo to see if you can go another 1 or 2 kph more, are the extra few seconds you gain on a journey really that important. And yes a lot of the fines here can be based on your income and with the high wages in some industries can be jaw dropping.

You occasionally get the odd warning from oncoming motorists if the police have a proper check - radar hidden and pulling immediately.

The Swiss run with the attitude that speeding is illegal - and they will try and catch you. Speed cameras are there to make money so they have no reason to warn you. They don't hide behind a "safety campaign", they just go out to get you. To what extreme? A black BMW 5-series estate parked on the inside of a slight bend, at night, in roadworks (opposite side of the motorway), targetting cars. At the next junction there was a police roadblock with a queue of drivers being pulled - and each driver waved through individually.

Another example is the section on the A13 (E43) past Andeer. It is a 100kmh limited dual carriageway section - and one of the few dual carriageway sections between Chur and the San-Bernadino tunnel. Very often from now until the end of Summer they will have a man in camoflage sat behind the armco with a radar gun - and then police waiting in force picking out cars a few KM further up the road.

The Bern-Zurich section of motorways is, I believe, the busiest section in the country - and gets rammed very early. I have had to do that trip quite a few times to get to Safenwil - and then to get back to Zurich I head cross-country and it is usually quicker.

Considering the number of days I have spent hooning about in the mountains; the amount of time I spend diving above the speed limit; and my rapid right ankle flexing - my cumulative speeding fine is relatively low.

On the fine front: the more over the limit you are and the lower the limit - the higher the fine. Once you hit a certain point there will be court case incurring an admin charge (court cost) and a further punishment. To have a salary based fine requires excessive speed.

Ultimately, Switzerland is a small country, and driving VERY quickly is going to make very little difference to your journey speed.

And finally - we don't have points over here!!!

(In 10 years I have had 5 fines: 1*20; 3*40; 1*60 = 200chf in total)

there are not more speeding cameras here in switzerland than 10 years ago! it's not possible, because the need to get approved by the goverment! and thats a very long and difficulte process! same with earning ticket-money by the police. what they are doing since 2 years is, they are modernising the old cameras. no film anymore inside...w-lan and handy-modules. also for speeding, crossing red lights and getting to close to the car in front of you. true is, the tickets here are very expensive!!! and that is good! there are so many lunatics on the streets now....best thing the police is doing now: confiscating the car from street-rowdies and sell it at a auction. the money goes to road-victims and other organisations. car gone, same with the permit (for years!) and if they did it more than once = jail time.
the thing with cruising mountain roads is true...it's often a racetrack and not a nice senic road :-((