ANyway, this topic is about cross the road, so let's try to get back to it? When I get another chance I'll start another thread about discrimination, racism etc and we can all slog it out in there...
Mark
First I would like to say to Simone, that I am sorry if you felt personally attacked. I do think there was a comment which I thought was a little rough. As Mark said we should not degrade this forum by attacking minorities in a country in which integration is often very challanging. I thought the beauty of this forum would be to allow expats to have somewhere to chat to others who may be experiencing similar difficulties, may want to rant and rave about the country we currently live in etc. I understand from your message that you have not faced any discrimination from the swiss? If so then I can only say I'm happy you're living in a more open minded community. I am half swiss and due to my british surname I am often faced with various forms of discrimination for not being "a real swiss" but this is not part of the discussion here... I just really wanted say that I completely understood why you made your post with regards to your husbands fine... I think that we have drifted away from the topic a little. After all this thread was about crazy driving!
Simon, I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and tell you that you're comment was out of line... but I am going to think it . I just wondered where you have managed to gain all this experience?
Anyway, lets try and move the discussion back to the topic.... On that note I just wanted to make a little point about cyclists... I am a cyclist in Zurich but I do stick to the rules of the road. However, many cars just seem to think that they can overtake or cut in front at these little roundabouts because I'm a cyclist... many times I've had to stop suddenly because some reckless driver has decide not to let me have right of way!!
You have some guts to insult (me in this case) in your way without knowing anything about me? Then you should at least intoduce yourself.]
SMILE....I have to wonder if this "poor downtrodden and racially abused Simone" , who has been so upset about being discribed as slavic, instead of dalmatian (if i correctly understood what he messages were all about) is the same lady who managed to discribe me as a "gay indian guy"!! (actally white caribbean!!)
Simone - there will be no apologies from my side I'm afraid. If you read my post, the part about walking out on a crossing is from personal experience. You immediately thought my posting was targeted at you. If I don't know you, how would I have possibly known your origins? Your over-reacton would indicate a chip on your shoulder. If I had written that the lady crossing also wore a head scarf, then the scarf would have justified my comment being racist. My message made no such references, so I do not believe it could be construed as offensive.
Does anyone on this forum actually know how to define racism? It would appear not. Nowhere in my original (unedited) message did I see a derogatory comment targeted against a FYR national. It I changed the last two letters to '*****do' would every member from Italy, Spain, Portugal or Brasil have complained? What about 'Mr Smith or Mr Patel crossing the road' would that have been offensive to an ethnic group in Switzerland?
Paul, there really is no need to state the obvious regarding using common sense on the forum. If there was malice intended, then perhaps, but anyone looking at the original posts should be able to see there was none.
By the way, what was the topic of this thread about?
But seriously, all though a little controversial, at least it made for a heated discussion!
Let's analyse: You're trying to get onto a main street where traffic isn't moving fast. Does anyone let you in? Nope. You're driving on the Autobahn. You want to go 121kph but the car in front of you doesn't. Lane One is empty. Seen that before? Indication. Mirror - Signal - Manoeuvre. No? Manoeuvre - Signal and who cares because behind is not your concern? Zipper-merging. Apparently not taught anywhere in the world as it's too hard to grasp but.... do you, when seeing "2 lanes merge to 1 in 1000m" a) panic and get into that one lane already or b) proceed with caution and merge as applicable. Oh, and if you choose a), it's mandatory to try to f--k those choosing b) right up Cyclists. In bubbles. Protective bubbles. Nothing can hurt them (I won't talk about running reds ) - just swing that arm out and you can go across 4 lanes of traffic Audis. Everyone who doesn't have a BMW has one Give way to traffic from right AKA The Chicken Junction. You have those in the know, those who don't know and those who don't care. Scary. Give way signs/markings on road. To be ignored? Parking. Drive around car park 100 times or take a spot where you just have to walk 10 metres more? Your choice. Parking.....well, leaving. Drive to machine to get ticket stamped - it doesn't matter that you walked past it once already. Stop car. Block everyone. Old people. Well, not all of them. Just this one from last Friday....trying to, in a busy street at rush hour on Friday (specifically last Friday) - trying to stop and reverse into his drive. His achievement? Higher blood pressure and 40 hacked-off motorists. Manoevre failed (and he was upset when he found out I only got my licence yesterday ) Cars who think motorbikes should not filter past them - and thus embark on a quest to prevent this Eye contact. They won't make it. Extremely humerous, especially when a woman is gesturing towards you - just stare straight ahead Mr Swiss-Audi-Avant driver, the Italian lady might hurt your eyes I could go on, I could, I could....!
Ideally it's nice to wait for eye-contact, but many drivers start slowing down way before you can make eye-contact with them. I'm a driver too and it would annoy me if I have to contantly stop at every crossing when I could just slow down to give enough time to cross. (This doesn't apply to kids mind you).
The best drivers are the ones that signal with their hands.
The worse are those that don't make eye contact and have animated conversations on the phone. I can liken these to pedestrians who walk with their mobile phones to their ears - so it works both ways.
It's different for kids, but for us adults, we just have to trust common sense to prevail and allow for those with none (again, falls under "common" sense).
But I can say in my experience, that most drivers here in Zurich City, do stop at zebra crossings. Maybe it's the slow speeds of driving in Zurich City that help this as oppose to those that terrorise outlying villages with their starsky & hutch style high speed driving.
But to go back to the original post, I do know that friends from Basel are always suprise when they come to visit.
I've driven in plenty of countries too and courtesy is often missing here; it's the [Swiss-German] I-AM-RIGHT attitude.....thus people will often not yield in situations where traffic could work together.
Belgium has the worst drivers I've even encountered btw, and Germany and perhaps Italy the best. The US is best for progress in a steady manner and the UK has the most crowded roads (in general) that I've ever seen.
I liked your post earlier about driving habits - most of them were spot on. It's amazing that there aren't a lot more fatalities on the roads, especially amongst cyclists who seem to think they have ultimate priority over anything and everything else (including pedestrians). Combine that with the 'If I signal that gives me priority' mentality of many motorists and it really is a miracle that the roads aren't littered with bodies.
I do think that there's something about the roads around Zuerich that's worse than elsewhere though - possibly a lot of people blow their aggression off there rather than in the workplace or elsewhere in public. Driving in Lausanne for example, was much more pleasurable for me. In Zuerich, people don't generally show that much courtesy to other road users and there seems to be a 'rat race' approach to driving.
The zipper-merging thing isn't unique to Switzerland ... I don't think I've ever seen it done properly anywhere. It should really be taught as part of driving lessons. The problem is that when people don't know how it works, they get quite hacked off at anyone actually doing it properly (ie. driving to the very end of the 'free' lane and merging there). I believe that sometimes there are signs up in places where lanes are about to merge, telling people to use both lanes for as long as possible.
Gav
Actually, I do know a story of someone here who, when a motorbike filtered past him tried to accelerate and became fixated on the bike......and when he saw the stationary traffic ahead swerved into a road island and ground his car on it.
And then was arrested for assaulting the car driver behind who saw it all kick-off and laughed at him
Your avatar is a Taco Bell logo - does that mean you have Taco Bell in Geneva? Wow that is different....
No seriously. As much as I hate Zurich drivers (I am one of them), we have to cut them some slack. Where else would you get a tiny city of 300,000 people that has most of the autobahn traffic from the country being dumped right into the centre of it? Or somewhere where if you build underground car parking spaces they have to close the same number of spaces above ground - so as not to make everyone's lives easier?
I'm just amazed that there isn't more road rage!
Yes I know driving is bad in other places. My driving experience in Milan wasn't much fun, but at least that's a city that can claim to have more than a tiny population!
Just got back from Florida, and noticed that driving habits seemed to have vastly improved from my last visit there 10 years ago. Mind you, drinking and driving seemed to be the order of the day, but I was surrounded by red necks...
In further defence of Swiss drivers I'd say that they are some of the best I've seen in the world. They move over on the autobahn, and actually know that overtaking on the left is not only illegal, but it's bad (hello Americans - are you listening to this?). They just have some pent-up agression issues to deal with but that doesn't apply just to driving!
Mark
I lived 8 Years in Florida and went crazy trying to figure out how the hell your meant to use the highway over there. so meany lanes but no order. Got pulled over for zig zaging between traffic doing all of 5 miles over the speed limit.
No unfortunately we don’t have Taco Bell in Geneva, wish we did, as it’s the only Fast Food I like. I only get it when I go visit my buddy in the US army in Manheim.
Arran