Adjusting to new life in Switzerland

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
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Just an update from our side, we have slowly adjusted to our new lifestyle and it has been great so far.

It takes some getting use to, but overall we are doing well.

Work has been interesting, but so far colleagues have been great.

Work permit has been issued, medical insurance, schooling, lease and parking has been sorted.

To do list:

  • wife needs to get A1 level German before our permit renewal
  • I need to get a police clearance certificate from our RSA police for renewal
  • We have 12 months since arrival to change our licenses from SA to CH - unfortunately not just a change over, but we need to do driving tests.
  • Still need to get liability insurance

My son has joined a spielgruppe for 2 days, but will start school next year August.
My wife and I have joined the local crossfit gym, which has been great for her to meet some people and she is considering to start coaching there, as she has not really started looking for a job yet.
Money has been tight, as the company has paid for my rental deposit and first 3 months rent, and they are now deducting it gradually month per month, in January I received my first full salary, and then also first Serafe and first utilities bill. But we have been frugal with our spending so we have a fridge full of food, and happy hearts.

We have met some great people since we have arrived, and we are grateful to be here, and look forward to our new chapters to be written.

Quick question, I have a company car as part of my employment, and was given a car that was used by a colleague who moved back to Germany, HR instructed me to go to the traffic dept to update the name on the registration papers to my name, and the cancelled the number plates, and asked for my license to change to my name, i gave them my RSA license which they said they cannot use, i need a swiss license, so I had until midnight to park the car and apply for swiss license, I have to do a practical drivers test in Zurich. I will apply for test this week, and then also make an appointment with driving school for lessons.

Has anyone done something similar, and how difficult is the driving test, if i fail i have to do the whole theory and practical test from scratch.

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Maybe pay for a lesson with a driving instructor who can walk you through it and do a mock test so you are prepared.

You want to pass this as it is expensive and time consuming to do whole theory and practical tests.

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I’d make that a couple of lessons.

The problem isn’t driving - it’s going by the book.

And I suspect, the book has gotten larger and more complicated since OP got his original license in a different country.

I doubt I’d make it out of the driveway of the Strassenverkehrsamt (or wherever these start) if I had to do a driving test tomorrow. My license is from 1992.

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Hello, I also had to take the practical test to exchange my 3rd country driving permit. It’s not difficult, but tricky.

As rainer_d mentioned check seat, mirrors, and steering wheel position before starting the car. I have long arms (relative to legs) and driving instructors recommend anyway to put the seat too close to the steering wheel to my comfort. I did it anyway for the the test. TBH, this is unsafe for me because I can’t turn the wheel without hitting the center console with my right elbow or touching the bolster of the seat with my left elbow, but…do what others say its the optimal driving position (at least for the test).

Following speed limits is obvious. But, there’s more. I was directed to a street in town where the only option is to turn left. Going straight or right means going against the flow, automatic flunk.

A bit of motorway driving too. It’s good practice to join as fast as you can, but…my wife failed the test and one of the comments was “accelerating too aggressively to join the motorway”. FFS!!!

The most annoying part for me was getting told where to go. Drive to X town and having to read a Christmas tree of signs in city streets where village names are mixed with useful signs as butcher, pool or police. I only passed this part because I memorized the roads while riding my bicycle.

Are you comfortable enough with driving among trams and buses? All the markings on the ground are tricky. Make sure of understanding them.

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To be honest driving in Zurich makes me nervous with all the traffic, trams, pedestrians, cyclists etc.

I would much rather do my license in Zug, but I assume that is not an option.

Are you serious that they tell you to drive to Town X without giving directions?

I can barely get to the office without using google maps

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That happened several times during my test

Drive to the motorway, so look for a green sign with and arrow and drive on this direction

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Or drive to X town just before entering a roundabout. White signs like these, but lots of them.

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I took the wrong exit on a roundabout (add big truck, people in bicycles and pedestrians). I got a comment about this, but I passed the test in the end. But I guess that if I made the same mistake several times, I would not have passed it.

PS. We can open a new thread about “adjusting to new life”. We’re a bit out of the topic of “will my salary be enough?” :slight_smile:

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Agreed will start a new thread with all the unique swiss challenges

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Nothing compared to Rome

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Someone I know taught their son to drive recently. No lessons at all.
He passed first time without a single mistake.

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It’s a few years ago now but that’s exactly the same as our son.
I taught him to drive all by myself and he passed first time with no mistakes. The cantonal vehicle licence place has a handy app which covers everything they need to know and recommendations for how many hours of practice is needed so we loosely followed that.
We started off in empty car parks on Sunday afternoons until he got the hang of the controls.

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One time in Milan I found myself on tram tracks that were seperated from the vehicle road by a hedge. I was worried until I noticed a whole stream of vehicles following me.

Took my driving test in 1959 so I am sure I would never pass a current one.

As others said, do take a lesson or two as the instructors know the routes used.

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You beat me by 16 years. My test was only 5 minutes. All I had to do was parallel park. Piece of cake after passing driver ed class in high school. The best part was going out into a vacant parking lot after a major snowstorm. Real fun driving a rear wheel drive through a foot of snow.

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We haven’t bothered with a car since we’ve been in Switzerland so my OH never changed his licence (I’ve never driven). Problem we now have is as he has a UK licence but is domiciled here we can’t hire a car in the UK, it’s something to do with Brexit.

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I attempted the exam as soon as I was eligible, and I stupidly failed. The examination center was kind of outside of the town, something like 1km drive to actually enter any traffic. On my way back the instructor congratulated me and started chatting once we entered the last mile road to the center… there was a red light semaphore for absolutely no reason, and I suspect it was remote controlled, so I was too distracted by the chatting and had driven through…

Next time I attempted almost 20 years later. The rules changed, the instructors were not allowed to distract the driver… but boy, the traffic have increased, the rules have changed, it took me a lot of driving lessons to get confidence driving in town, driving by the book whilst everyone else doesn’t care about “petty” rules like speed, signs, etc… It took me 3 attempts to get the license, but I wonder how many attempts would I need to pass it today :smiley: It’d be really hard to drive by the book again

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I stumbled upon a document yesterday about requesting for test to happen in another canton.

I was thinking of requesting to have the practical drivers test to happen in Zug rather than Zurich.

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+1 for paying for a few lessons just in case. I don’t remember whether you mentioned elsewhere how much time you spent outside of RSA. If you mostly drove there, your brain is hardwired for driving on the left and it would be easy to make a mistake under pressure when driving on the right.

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I would definitely take a couple of lessons with a driving school and get one of the driving theory apps to study. There are some odd rules in Switzerland which you may not have encountered elsewhere.

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I have been driving in CH for about 5 months now,

But like you said to get rid of the hardwiring is difficult.

One more than one occasion I drove on the wrong side of the road (Sorry Switzerland)

I am going to the traffic dept today to submit my application, plus request for drivers test in Zug.

I believe they will issue me with a temp drivers permit of some sort.

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Hi, drive around the Strassenverkehrsamt (road traffic office) in Zug. Your test will start and end there. So, at least you get familiar with the streets around there, find complex intersections, memorize a few village names, etc.

For example, I’ve seen several people fail at this traffic light in my village when going straight. Sometimes they stop when there’s a green light. And sometimes they keep going with a red light. There’s an arrow clearly indicating the light is for the left turn. But it’s absolutely not intuitive to have the light there.

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Switzerland is full of situations like this one. I think I just became paranoid and scan my whole environment, only relax while driving in places I know. We’re mid Feb and I think I can celebrate a year 2025 with no driving fines :slight_smile:

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the repeated left turn light is indeed very odd, when you’re on the left lane you won’t even see it if any van/lorry is on the right lane, let alone who would even expect it