I thought the broken yellow line indicated the road (that part) is to be shared. Not the motorist was prohibited from using it at certain times.
You need to re-read what @Axa wrote. It’s pretty explicit.
According to Fahrlehrer24 ;
Driving on the Bicycle Lane
Drivers of other vehicles may drive on the bicycle lane delimited by a broken line, provided they do not obstruct bicycle traffic.
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Comes round to a bit of a circular argument. A car’s wheel in the cycling lane does not necessarily “obstruct” cycle traffic in a physical way, but there’s a good chance that it will cause cyclists using that lane to react, and that’s surely as bad as? I would hope that any cyclists feeling the need to react in any way would be deemed to have been obstructed.
Put it another way, as a driver I have frequently driven in dotted-line cycle lanes with no cyclists in them but my golden rule would be, if I see a cyclist, I need to make sure I’m not in that lane at any point such that they feel the need to react.
That’s actually a much more general ‘rule’ in UK Police advanced driving, where my brother used to be an instructor - on his interview for the job he was told to drive, in an unmarked car, as fast as he could safely do so. One of the criteria they used was looking at other cars’ headlights as he approached a roundabout, intending to go straight out, where if the headlight beam was seen to drop at all it meant that the car had braked or at least come off the throttle. He would not have got the job if they had done so.
I’ve always since used this as a measure of my own level of ‘safe’ but possibly not always strictly within the law driving, and I think it very much applies when talking about cycle/car separation distance. If you’ve worried a cyclist that you might be too close then you were, in fact, too close.
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Interesting enough in Spain it is legal to cross a solid line for overtaking of bicycles. But with a distance of 1.5 meters.
But then they did put solid lines almost everywhere. In Switzerland and in most other countries it is strictly forbidden to pass a solid line AFAIK.
This causes long queues behind out-of.-country drivers because as they always say…
Spain is different:
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If I wait behind a tractor spreading cow dung that will make my village smell like shit for days…I can wait for a cyclist. At least my village will not smell like shit for days.
I don’t know where this “sharing” thing comes from.
The principle of impenetrability is one the simplest physics concepts to grasp. Even for people with no formal education at all.
Two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time.
It is not like shit, it is shit. Has not much to do with what I said, that tourists that don’t know the bicycle overtaking rules cause problems in Spain. First they pass too close and second they don’t pass at all.
Is this a rhetoric trick? I think “sharing” in this sense means you can use it from either direction but obviously not at the same time. Sorry if you cannot understand the difference and it therefor was not a troll-like rhetoric trick. If it was a trick to make people answer congratulations, it worked.
I’m far from being an arbiter here. English is my 3rd language. I’d prefer the opinion of someone who is native speaker.
Meanwhile:
No, I (as a native speaker) think you’ve misunderstood, and the definition you’ve trimmed carries on with a good example, about sharing the driving, where quite clearly multiple people cannot be driving a car at the same time. So no, there is no implication that lane sharing means multiple vehicles from whatever direction are using the sme space at the same time.
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It’s the same in the UK - but drivers seem to be more careful as time goes on, rather like seat-belt laws which were ignored by many to begin with.
In the UK though, you can report a near-miss (or hit) online, uploading your time-stamped video to a Police server who then may choose to prosecute with a fine, points on the licence or a driver training course.
Those who contest through the courts, and are found guilty end up with a more severe punishment.
It’s the same for mobile phone use whilst operating a car.
Some Police forces are getting fed up with the number of videos they have to deal with though.
If you sent some mobile-phone use footage to the Police here you’d probably get fined under the privacy laws!
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Four years in jail for knocking a bicycle rider off in Zürich
Evidence from bike front and rear cameras
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Summary
Dashcam footage captured a collision between a car and a cyclist in Zurich, providing crucial evidence that led to the conviction of a 35-year-old driver. Without these private video recordings, the driver might have avoided legal consequences entirely. The Federal Supreme Court has established that such dashcam videos are admissible as evidence in cases involving serious crimes.
Key Points:
Incident Details:
- In April 2023, on the Rosengartenstrasse near Hardbrücke in Zurich, a VW Passat driven by a 35-year-old man aggressively overtook a cyclist, crossed a safety line, and collided with him.
- The cyclist sustained injuries including a shoulder injury, broken finger, and scratches. The driver continued driving afterward.
Role of Dashcam Footage:
- Two cameras mounted on the cyclist’s bike (front and rear) recorded the incident, showing the car approaching closely, honking, overtaking dangerously, and colliding.
- This evidence was pivotal; without it, the driver likely would not have faced prosecution.
Legal Context:
- Swiss courts generally do not admit private dashcam footage unless it pertains to serious offenses. A landmark 2019 ruling clarified that such evidence is permissible for severe crimes like reckless driving endangering life.
- The driver’s actions were classified under “raserdelikte” (reckless driving offenses), which involve intentional disregard for traffic rules posing high risks of harm or death.
Charges and Sentencing:
- The prosecutor charged the driver with attempted intentional homicide, seeking a six-year prison sentence.
- The defense argued it was an accident resulting from reckless overtaking, requesting a fine instead.
- The district court convicted the driver of attempted serious bodily harm (in two instances) and sentenced him to 50 months in prison (over four years).
- The judge emphasized the driver’s prior record, including multiple traffic violations and throwing a lit torch into a crowd during a Travis Scott concert in July 2024.
Appeal Possibility:
- The verdict is not yet final; a minority of the three-judge panel considered attempted intentional homicide applicable, meaning the case could be appealed to the higher court.
This case underscores the importance of personal safety devices like dashcams in holding drivers accountable for dangerous behavior.
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So, you don’t actually have to be injured? I guess it would help in these cases as then there could be no dispute over the distance between the vehicle and cyclist.
If there is an appeal, I supposed it could go both ways - depending on the persuasions of the judges during the appeal, he could end up with just a fine.
If I had cameras fitted all the time, I could probably get quite a few drivers put away here, or at least fined.
The driver had, on a previous occasion, thrown a firework and burnt a sixteen year old’s hand:
The attempted murder was not the only offense for which the accused had to answer on Thursday. He is alleged to have picked up a firework lying on the ground at a Travis Scott concert in the Hallenstadion in 2024 and thrown it into the crowd. A 16-year-old was struck in the head and suffered burns to his hand. This incident was also documented with video footage.
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From one of a newspaper’s comments after suggestions that he may get a more lenient sentence:
Uneasy feeling, highly paid defense attorney…? Overpaid defense attorney? Will he open a bottle of champagne after the verdict – strongly suspected, lenient justice…??
This links to the other thread:
I was about to share that. The prison comes from ramming the cyclist + previous assault offenses.
So, it’s the very specific case of a guy caught on video which allowed the prosecutor to prove premeditation while ramming the cyclist (no negligence/accident), and not the first time assaulting people.
In the UK, they are not allowed to bring up previous offences in court as it could prejudice the case in question.
Obviously allowed here though.
Not saying I agree with this, just pointing it out.
Not for the purpose of determining guilt. But certainly can and do for sentencing.
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I’m going to disagree here.
They have Public Juried trials in the UK, of which you are aware and knowing certain facts about previous convictions could influence whether they provide a guilty or non-guilty verdict.
There are laws and procedures to try and prevent this but imagine, for example, someone being in a suspected rape case and the jury found out that the victim had accused many men of rape on previous occasions and where it was shown that these rapes didn’t happen?
Or the other way around?
In the UK, a judge can decide whether previous convictions can be disclosed and taken into consideration during trial. It has to be relevant to the current case and the value has to outweigh any possible prejudice. Sometimes used in trials where someone has protested “I’ve never done anything like this before, guv” when they have. Can’t just be used in order to show someone’s a wrong’un.