What I meant by making jokes about some odd American mentality (i.e. zero tolerance, heavy fines for sh**, security crap and ROI on everything)
was that this is not how Switzerland works.
It's heavily against Swissness (whatever that shall be) to fine a customer of a public transportation service because he sits in the wrong class,
employees cuts is the spirit of the Chicago Bulls, of Bushness, neomarginalism and all this crap from the US all Europe hates so much.
I do not want to say that the US is worth nothing (in the contrary: saved the World and Europe twice) and that anglosaxon way of running enterprises and all economy ruin the country, but among the things their spirit brought abroad there are also some negative points: e.g. wanting to be more Swiss than a Swiss would be, being hypercorrect in everything, thinking all the time about money return, considering oneself worthier because of following all strange rules ... strange thing no offense
Watching too much Team America I think.
Yes, of course, also the Brits who held on alone until Uncle Sam decided it could be about time.
The mistake I tend to make - and one day I will get fined for it - is forgetting to buy a ticket if I'm going a couple of stops beyond the zones covered by my travelcard. After a while you get so used to not needing to buy a ticket that you tend to forget that you might need one. Not for a long distance journey of course, but just if you're using the usual local network but crossing the border of a zone that your card doesn't cover you for.
I still haven't worked out if I can go to Sattel or Arth-Goldau on my "all zones" Zuger Pass, the ZVB map isn't clear as to whether bits of the Zug network that are actually in Kanton SZ are covered.
The only place where I get fined for shit is right here in Switzerland. I recently got a parking ticket for stopping in front of my own house to get my mobile phone. It took me about 2 minutes to get it. I get back to my car - Ticket.
I wonder if we notice this stuff more when abroad. We were not amused when we got a ticket in LA for being 2 minutes late to our car- they guy issuing the ticket saw us run towards him and he jumped into the van and slammed the door in our face. The automated line to pay with a credit card was faulty so the payment was not taken - and we got a letter with a 'delinquent status' months later with a huge fine months later in UK. S***t happens anywhere, really.
I don't really get fined anywhere, so I can't tell, but lemi tell you guys, travelling a lot by trains outside of Switzerland currently, SBB is the cleanest rail there is. The trains are clean everywhere seems like. But the train stations, ugh. Grime.
When visiting a friend from Prague in Prague, she got a parking fine the first day, and clamped the third - the joys of new liberalism - she was NOT a happy cookie.
I don't drive in Prague, no parking spots to start with, car theft is horrific, but mostly because driving in Prague is an adrenalin sport, heh. Dangerous maniacs.
There is a nice train from Zurich to Prague, I just took a short leg in it today, fancy. Clean!
(I only hope your friend was actually fined by real cops )
This can only mean that you don't drive, or if you do, drive like a Grandma :-)
That's why we need open container laws
What's wrong with that?
A fast one, though, they said the pedals from piano and sewing maching have wrecked my driving.
SBB folks are the best, though. A little too...ceremonial, not too chill, but linguistic geniuses. Some of them know how to knit, have checked my needlework.
Top of Zurich has hijacked MC's account!
I on my only visit to Prague (1991) drove a rented car, and only was astonished by a zebra on the highway I had seen donkey, horsecarts and furnitures exhibition on the Tanta-Alexandria highway but this was something new to me !
I'm sure that cruise control was invented especially for piano players :-)
Did they advise you about the first Swiss German knitting rule ?
Inestäche umeschlaa, durezieh und abelaa !
I got so many parking fines in San Diego only because the meters were expired by a few minutes Sometimes the traffic police was standing next to a meter, waiting for it to expire. Luckily, sometimes we came back in time and they had to leave quite disappointed. That's why I don't believe in that myth of relaxed American policemen and over-eager Swiss police. I experienced it the other way round.
Okay, but California is different.
You are funny. Remind me, which state is LA in? I know the beach was called 'Venice' but it was defo not in Italy - how much more Californian can Venice beach be? So much for the happy hippy debonnaire attitude ... We could see the guy standing next to our car waiting for the thing to expire from the beach - we started running back, and we arrive 1 minute late- the fine was stuck on the windscreen (shield) he saw us arrive, jumped in the van and slammed the door in our face We also got a fine in Santa Barbara a week later, this time a couple of minutes late.
Just trying to say that people get 'stung' more rarely when 'home' because they know the system. And if it does happen, it stings a lot more when you are away from home, because you don't know said system- because you expect to be welcome as a foreigner or a tourist, etc.
I once had to ride from St Gallen to Geneva in a first class compartment with a woman who "didn't realize it was first class" with a very screechy baby in a stroller. I had a broken ankle and was walking with a cane. It was otherwise empty until Zurich. She had only a second class ticket for herself. I had paid for first.
In her defense, it was a double deck train and you have to leave the train and walk down the quai if you have a stroller - OR A CANE- to change wagons. She complained to the ticket conductor who asked her to move to another wagon, that she didn't have enough time to walk down to the second class, which holds water in a station like Winterthur, but in Zurich HB you have seven minutes. She pretended to get out in Zurich HB when the conductor was watching then came back in the compartment, which is why I didn't move then- I could have made it one wagon down with the cane. The second conductor came back in Fribourg and she gave her sob story to the second one. Chica got a free ride.
In a regional train like the OP took, I agree that visually first class doesn't look very different. On the big dopplestecke they do. I cannot believe this woman had no idea where she was, and I think she was lying through her teeth. Or doesn't know the difference between 1 and 2.
I would have sucked it up had they been paying first class, or gotten out in Zurich HB to another wagon had she not been so duplicitous about pretending to move, but I was pretty frosted that I paid at least 70 francs more than her for the same ride and got a migraine on top of it and two conductors didn't even make her pay. I found that quite unfair.
I wish the fare paying rules were dished out fairly. I would have made her pay and not given her an out because she had a baby: stay on the train, fair, but pay for the right to sit there.
I think there are certainly personality types that are attracted to these types of jobs. It's the type the really see things as black or white, late or not late, and no amount of reasoning/complaining/explanation will change that. For some it's their only sense of power and they enjoy wielding it on anyone they can. (especially American meter maids and mall cops.)
Regarding trains here, having a yearly pass makes me forget to buy a ticket sometimes. If I know I'm planning to go somewhere, I usually remember and get the zone extension. But I can thoroughly sympathize with those that forget and get nailed.
Next time go to San Francisco ... or Palm Springs ... or Vegas ...