We can't drive 35
It's a good thing I got my Swiss driver's license when I did, because at the current pace at which we're accumulating speeding tickets, the local authorities might start having second thoughts. I think we've gotten at least 3-4 tickets in the past few months.
The biggest challenge seems to be that residential streets have a speed limit of 30kph, which is about 18mph. Since the Swiss always subtract 5kph off of your speeding ticket, the de facto limit is 35kph, or around 21mph. That's not a problem on ordinary residential streets like ours, but the problem is that it can include larger streets that go through residential areas, including the main streets into and out of our neighborhood. You have no idea how slow 35kph is until you try it on a relatively busy through-street. I seem to be physically incabable of going that slow, which is a problem since the local authorities seem to have caught on to the idea of using speed cameras hidden in parked cars. Luckily most of our speeding tickets have been for going around 37kph, so once they subtract 5kph it's only 2kph over the speed limit and the resulting fine is low enough to be more a nuisance than anything else. But after having a pretty clean driving record back home, it's a bit disconcerting that we might soon be Public Enemy Number One on Swiss roads if we keep up the current pace.
Yesterday in the mail we got a familiar-looking letter from the Basel police. Gretchen could barely contain her glee that I had another speeding ticket, especially since she's constantly warning me about the 30kph zones (she was the first to get a ticket there--and an expensive one at that--so she's fairly paranoid). Imagine both of our surprise when we discovered that it was indeed a speeding ticket in a 30kph zone...but when we looked at the time and date and did the math it turned out the culprit was none other than Gretchen (and in a delicious irony, it happened on the stretch of road where she nags me the most about slowing down). Busted!
The biggest challenge seems to be that residential streets have a speed limit of 30kph, which is about 18mph. Since the Swiss always subtract 5kph off of your speeding ticket, the de facto limit is 35kph, or around 21mph. That's not a problem on ordinary residential streets like ours, but the problem is that it can include larger streets that go through residential areas, including the main streets into and out of our neighborhood. You have no idea how slow 35kph is until you try it on a relatively busy through-street. I seem to be physically incabable of going that slow, which is a problem since the local authorities seem to have caught on to the idea of using speed cameras hidden in parked cars. Luckily most of our speeding tickets have been for going around 37kph, so once they subtract 5kph it's only 2kph over the speed limit and the resulting fine is low enough to be more a nuisance than anything else. But after having a pretty clean driving record back home, it's a bit disconcerting that we might soon be Public Enemy Number One on Swiss roads if we keep up the current pace.
Yesterday in the mail we got a familiar-looking letter from the Basel police. Gretchen could barely contain her glee that I had another speeding ticket, especially since she's constantly warning me about the 30kph zones (she was the first to get a ticket there--and an expensive one at that--so she's fairly paranoid). Imagine both of our surprise when we discovered that it was indeed a speeding ticket in a 30kph zone...but when we looked at the time and date and did the math it turned out the culprit was none other than Gretchen (and in a delicious irony, it happened on the stretch of road where she nags me the most about slowing down). Busted!
<< Home