Photo: bfu
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The 2012 survey of Swiss drivers to see the rate of use of daytime lights on cars shows a slow but steady increase, but at 65 percent, cars in Switzerland remain far from the government’s goal of 100 percent. The Via Sicura road safety plan will make daytime lights obligatory.
New cars have had automatic daytime lights since 2011, so the rate of use is a question of the number of new cars on the road and drivers’ decisions to keep them on, according to the Swiss Safety Council (bfu).
An exception in the gradually growing use of lights was 2011, when the figure jumped to 75 percent, for reasons that are not clear. The use of lights during the day on local and secondary highways has grown more rapidly than on the autoroutes.
Via Sicura was hotly debated for 10 years, but in June 2012 the final version of it was approved by the Swiss parliament. The Federal Council has not yet set a date for its implementation. The plan is designed to cut the number of serious accidents and road deaths by 25 percent. It includes a large number of safety features, such as requiring older drivers to have regular tests, tougher measures against drunk driving and longer trial periods for young drivers.
The bfu used 57 checkpoints throughout the country to check 30,000 cars, only on sunny days. The surveys showed that use of daytime lights varies enormously from one area to another.
