I know it's not the first time somebody complains, but honestly: When I make a road trip through five EU countries is it hard to know each and every special rule that might apply and it is a fairly safe bet that things are roughly the same... but when you move to another country from far away and plan to drive there, take the 15 mins and read about the most common traffic rules. Don't take the ones from your home country as granted!
Simple example: I drove behind a car today where I am pretty sure that the driver was an expat. We drove on a main road through a couple of suburbs of Zurich, the speed limit is 60. On those roads do the Swiss have a zebra crossing that looks like this:
it has an "island" in the middle and this has a purpose: It legally turns the crossing into a series of two individual crossings. The idea is to improve the traffic flow: If there is just one crossing do you have to stop as a driver when a person comes from either side of the street. With the island do you only stop for people coming from the left once the reached the middle, not when they are approaching the left half of the street.
Like any other rule: The absolute bottom line of traffic laws is not to hand out fines, but to make sure that traffic is save and that means first of all predictable. In order to be predictable do you need to know the rules as a driver.
The driver this morning slammed on the brakes in an emergency stop manner when some old lady was approaching the opposite end of the crossing. I know I have to drive in a way that I am prepared for the unprepared and fortunately have very good brakes, so no, I did not hit him. But the guy behind me had a big enough dose of adrenaline that he can skip his morning coffee... Please don't do this, you are more of a danger to others than you are helping the pedestrian. Please learn the rules. Rant over.
the swiss have some very strict traffic rules that are unknown in many parts of the world...
I often see that pedestrians will stand about 3 metres back from the crossing when they want to cross and then someone will stop for them, if they want to cross or not. In Switzerland it seems drivers are very careful about making sure they stop for pedestrians. I don't believe they're all ex-pats.
I'm surprised there's not already a barrage of replies saying that you shouldn't have been driving so close to the car in front.
Such as?
They're very strict about not crossing a solid white line but I think most people would know they shouldn't, just that elsewhere they would be unlikely to be punished for it.
Really? My experience is the exact opposite: At least when it comes to main roads do cars only stop if I am standing right in front of the crossing and basically put a foot on the street. Especially along lake Zurich had I even examples of cars speeding up to cross before me instead of slowing down...
But that's beside the point here: Some drivers are clearly unaware of the double crossings and how they are supposed to work. Even if somebody is already crossing the left half do you only stop when they reach the middle...
what is the punishment for crossing the white line? a money fine in a rich country? In many places it is a loss of driving privileges for a month or more...
And please don't stop IN the round about or pass a bus around an island or across a solid white line, especially on a narrow curvy road!
The first was on UK plates... Why stop IN the round about? That can't be the rule in the UK.
The second was on Lituanian plates. He passed the bus around the island.
Maybe it's different in the big city that is Zurich. You can be stuck in traffic along the lake for ages while a constant stream of people crossing the road.
I took the point to be that it must surely only be ex-pats who do this even though the same rule applies in other countries.
Over here? Certainly a fine and possible also loss of licence depending on how dangerous a maneouver it was deemed to be.
Stop as in like parking to go shopping or something? As for the island I'm pretty sure you can't go around it whether there's a bus there or something else.
Its my impression in the Fribourg/Bern area, that predestrienst are just walking out in the zebra stribes with out even looking - As they are so used to the cars jumping their breaks to stop in time. Seriously one day in fribourg a guy crossed the street while he was looking back ( away ) from the road and he just walked like its nothing. In DK we hold back for Pedestrians when there is a zebra stribe, but not in the same manner as the swiss people do.
But everything is fine as soon as you learn and understand the roules and behaviors of your fellow drivers etc.
I find that whether motorists stop at a pedestrian crossing depends very much on the canton. Fribourg motorists are normally fairly amenable, in Bern less so, in Zurich and Ticino; yeah, good luck with that. .
It used to be that if you wanted to cross a zebra crossing you were supposed to wave your hand to alert the driver. Since a few years now this is no longer the practice and drivers should stop if somebody is waiting to cross ( quite right too). As for the double crossing it's better to be safe than sorry, especially when kids are crossing. In today's hectic world some people are angry when they lose a few seconds of time, but it's better than killing someone.
I don't know, do you?
Or in other words, please learn not to use this form of object/verb inversion in English. In the above sentence, it clearly implies a question when used like that.
Please feel free to ignore this if you don't want your almost-perfect English to get even better.
This is what happens when you cross the white line (albeit a mystery complaint as the OP never came back with the facts)
In Morocco unless signed otherwise, you are supposed to give way to people entering a roundabout. I got a ticket for not stopping whilst on the roundabout which seemed bizarre to me, but apparently like most good ideas it comes from a now obsolete French traffic law.
In our neck of the woods in the US Midwest nobody cares, maybe because the lines are yellow. They just mean, "Well, actually this is not exactly your side, not for longer than, say, half a minute, anyway." Double line: Replace 'half minute by '10 - 15 secs'.
If you kill a pedestrian by crossing a double line, you may get a one-sentence appearance on the local "Today on Our Roads" newscast. Pedestrians are free game.
Trying to buy a can of beer on a Sunday morning... now that's a different story altogether. You better get a very good attorney.
No. They had stopped to let traffic in.
I get to the crossing and start walking straight away to make a point, in Kanton Aargau you would stand by the crossing all day and wait for the traffic to stop - it won't unless you make it.
Also pay attention to the old ladies and kids who stand at the crossing to chat and have no intention of crossing the road, slowing the traffic down and generally confusing everyone.
You definitely mustn't pass the island on the left if it has the sign that's #234 on
this page . Additionally, IIRC in theses cases there's usually (alwas?) a solid white line the last 5-10 meters before the island.
In my experience drivers respect pedestrians right of was on pedestrian crossings most always, including Zürich city. Perhaps it depends on the pedestrian making his intentions clear by them walking towards the yellow stripes a few meters before actually reaching them. E.g. you walk in the middle of the sidewalk while away, steer to the street-side edge once you're closing in.
Well, the "I wear my over-ear headphones, stare at my mobile and make spontaneous 90 degree turns" pedestrians are an entirely different problem... in this case was it very clear that grandma indeed wanted to cross, was still two meters from the left side of the street and really slow. In case she could make a spontaneous 7 Meter leap would I expect her to be a retired x-men member and probably not harmed by the impact...
I don't know from where the over-use of "do" is learned but I (do) hear and see it quite often. It's quite a nuance to learn though.
The 'wrong way around' might come from German where the verb comes first if not the start of the sentence.