It’s very difficult to get insurance over 80 as most companies won’t cover the risk.
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I had a neighbour in her 90s and it was terrifying when she was driving. At her age and health the reaction was slow and eyesight not great. The car was super dinged-up, but she was driving every day.
I occasionally look at the Swiss Police website for accident information (rather than the online newspapers) and the accidents described seem to match what @Axa wrote:
Young people, in high-powered cars, crashing off the road in single-vehicle accidents.
Old people, pulling out of junctions and driving straight into passing cyclists.
I’m much more careful now when on the bike, and passing junctions if there is a car waiting to pull out and the occupant is elderly.
Of course there is plain stupidity too like this one from Monday where a Police van stopped at a pedestrian crossing and the car driver behind it, high on drugs, drove straight into the back of the Police van:
Wait a min…it’s illegal to drive without car insurance (liability to others). So, it can be assumed that the drivers above 70+ YO have at least liability insurance.
Insurers should not be happy to cover the costs generated by the death count and compensating survivors.
My over-80s parents in law both still drive and their insurance premium isn’t particularly high. They’ve never really had a claim (maybe the odd time they’ve been dinked in a car park but nothing significant).
I imagine if you’re over 80 and had a few claims, that would drive up your premium, though.
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Today in SRF. Those are F1 speeds.
An 18-year-old pushes on the gas, races at over 280 km/h over a Zurich motorway.
His passenger cheers him on, the colleague filming in the back seat. The speeder has only had the driver’s license for two months. The car is rented, an Audi RS7 with 600 hp. The young men risk their lives, endanger others. Everything is live on Tiktok.
The weakest car 
In 2025, there were 30 road deaths in the canton of Zurich, of which six were speeding deaths. “That’s a lot. That is, one in five road deaths in the canton of Zurich is a speeding death," says Huwiler. In the fatal accidents, the “weakest” car involved had 400 hp.
Frankly I’m astonished that an 18 y o who’s only had a licence for 2 months was able to rent a 600bhp Audi RS7. I’m pretty sure the general rule, in the UK at least, has always been 21+ to rent any car.
There’s no suggestion in the article that it was rented to someone else, in which case he would be prosecuted for all sorts of other things, starting with driving without insurance.
I’m not normally in favour of more restrictive legislation, but in many places there are restrictions of one sort or another for new drivers, motorbikes in particular have a power limitation for the first two years (or something like that, I CBA to look up the details), and I don’t think that’s entirely unreasonable…
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I was cycling up a steep hill this afternoon on a very narrow road and a car coming down towards me stopped on the side (black sporty Mercedes).
I thought they were maybe taking in the view or answering a call but as I passed them, and gave a wave in thanks, the driver smiled and waved back and carried on.
Having a car let you pass here safely on narrow roads is as rare as hen’s teeth and I couldn’t really believe it - until I saw the licence plates: AI (Appenzell Innerrhoden) so it was obviously a foreigner in a rental car.
That wait must have cost them at least fifteen seconds. I can’t imagine how they managed.
Two years later, and on the same bit of road, but not in the same place, cars are passing me but I’m cycling in a marked cycle lane but still the cars move out a bit as they pass to give a bit of separation.
All except for one car, who has one set of wheels in the cycle lane as he passes. He is so close.
I glance left at the car and driver as he passes - it’s the same car, and same driver as two years previously!
This time I’ve got his licence plate number. Should I do anything?
Technically he’s not breaking the law here as anything goes as far as endangering cyclists go.
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There is a whole, separate thread on this topic.
I purposely didn’t want this new thread bogged down with a motorist-versus-cyclist debate which always seems to happen.
Can this closs-pass discussion continue there? I don’t think I can cope with the Nigel Farage types on two threads.
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This sucks.
There’s no minimum legal separation between car and cyclist in Switzerland. AFAIK the law says “enough to be safe”. So, unless you get hurt, it’s always “safe”, regardless of endangerment or if you had to make an evasive action to avoid hurt.
But, this is worse than passing too close. It’s having a wheel on the cycling lane while you’re there. This is worth telling the police. AFAIK it’s not allowed to use the cycling lane while a cyclist is there.
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On this note, I have been thinking of attaching a cam to my helmet. Any good suggestions?
Is this to record possible incidents, or to make Tik Tok videos?
I wouldn’t be happy having a camera on my helmet - aesthetic reasoning apart, I’d be concerned with all that pressure in one place if I fell off and hit my head.
The other thing was I didn’t want something that was a faff to use so I wouldn’t bother.
I’ve got a combined rear view camera and rear lamp. It’s not social media quality but in freeze frame, you can read car licence plates.
Importantly, if the bike tilts more than a certain angle, the video footage around that point is locked so cannot be deleted in the app (otherwise it is on a continuous loop whose length depends on the size of the micro SD card).
Anyway, as I always have a rear lamp on day or night, it wasn’t an issue to swap to a cam/lamp.
A 360 degree style camera is probably the best best as many accidents are from the side or front at intersections. Models (which I don’t have but get good reviews are the Insta360 cameras).
I’m more concerned with a vehicle getting so close that I fall off or end up going down a ravine but the vehicle driving away and me getting a fine etc for not being in control of my bike, or as the Police here like to put it - the cyclist was scared of the traffic and lost control and fell off.
I got it locally here
It says the quality is 2K but it is not.
I may upgrade to one with better quality video but they are probably four times the price.
For the front, I have a miniature action cam but the quality is not on par with Go-Pro or anything like that.
Some of the cheaper cameras have such awful quality video that they are not good for anything.
I would verify legality of such recording devices in CH. While I am not an expert in this area, I have heard various views and opinions of recording areas, people, vehicles, license plates that is visible from a public area.
To be honest, I don’t care.
I may ask the local Police what there view on it is though.
That would be a good call.
The general consensus seems to be having one on a loop which locks during an accident is ok but the evidence would be inadmissible in court unless the accident was extremely serious.
Same for a car dashcam.
I think the way to go for a bike at least is a discrete cam built into a rear lamp rather than a helmet mounted device which may get the attention it doesn’t need.
Looking around the forums, it seems making videos of mountain passes by bike, motorbike or car and putting them online is seem as pretty well accepted by the Police here.
Sending in footage of cars going through red lights or people on their phones not so much and could result in a fine but I don’t think anyone has been fined for doing so.
My personal view is privacy laws generally only benefit those people breaking the law and there is a big difference between videoing your neighbour sunbathing in her back garden and videoing people breaking the law out on public roads.
I expect that @Cherub’s OH would have had some of his questions answered if he had had a camera on his bike.
I’m not unconvinced that his fall wasn’t the result of someone driving too close.
This one is from Georgia, in the US and shows that some drivers really are psychopaths:
The driver was charged with two counts of aggravated assault, hit-and-run, reckless driving, aggressive driving, and failure to maintain a safe distance from a bicycle.
Story here
I ought to point out that for all those who think the cyclists were in the wrong for cycling in a group like:
- When in a block like that, they take up the same space as a car rather than a long line taking up the space of a lorry.
- It’s illegal, in Georgia, to cross a double yellow line, even for slow moving traffic - and the driver would have needed to cross it to pass safely, whichever way the cyclists were cycling.
- There was no traffic coming the other way anyway so the driver could have committed an illegal, but safe-for-the-cyclists overtake if he had wished.