Lauterbrunnen Valley, Switzerland (Photograph by Keith Halstead)
Lauterbrunnen Valley, Switzerland (Photograph by Keith Halstead)
Pedestrians hit by vehicles, English base-jumper dies and mountain ski-lift jump kills photographer
Update Tuesday 25 January / Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A number of accidents have occurred in the region in the past five days, including several road accidents where pedestrians were hit by vehicles. A pedestrian was hit by a bus at Petit Lancy in Geneva Monday morning 24 January, but details are not yet available from the police.
In canton Valais a 76-year-old woman was killed last Thursday when she was crossing the main Visp-Brig road, using a walker and she was hit by a truck. Three days earlier a 20-year-old woman was taken to hospital after being hit by a car driven by a 54-year-old man while she was crossing a main street in Sion, the capital of canton Valais.
Friday, an elderly woman crossing a street in Yverdon-les-bains in canton Vaud was hit and thrown several metres by a driver who then fled the scene of the accident. The woman died later in hospital and the driver, a 40-year-old man from the region, turned himself in to the police 1.5 hours after the accident.
Champéry ski lift jump kills 73-year-old
Police in canton Valais are trying to determine what prompted two hikers who were photographing the region around Champéry to jump off a chair-lift. 24 Heures Tuesday publishes comments made by the brother of the elder of the two men, who died after the jump. He blames no one and says it was simply “a dumb thing” that happened.
Samedan / Engadin airport near St Moritz, canton Graubuenden (photo: wikipedia)
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Samedan Airport, just 5 km from the resort of St Moritz in canton Graubuenden, will have stricter rules for pilots landing their small planes there after a series of accidents in recent years, including a deadly one Sunday 19 December.
Two men flying in from Zagreb were killed and their plane destroyed at Bever, near the airport, during a difficult landing. Two planes, one from Warsaw and the other from Vienna, crashed in February 2010 after hitting snowbanks near the airstrip, with no injuries in one of the accidents but two deaths and one person injured in the other.
Swiss federal civil aviation (OFAC) authorities say pilots planning to land at Samedan, also known as Engadin Airport, will be given permission only if they have been on an initiation flight to familiarize them with the special conditions at the airport. Samedan sits at 1,707 metres altitude and is the highest airport in Europe. It is nestled among mountains with several high peaks, and landing there is more complicated than in an airport on the plains, OFAC officials note. The pre-flight training requirement goes into effect at the start of the new year.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 51-year-old man died shortly after being hit by a train at the station in Wipkingen, on the outskirts of Zurich. He had just stepped off the train and fell onto the tracks for unknown reasons, then was hit by the moving train. Emergency services arrived at the scene promptly but were unable to save him. Police are looking for witnesses to the accident.
A Vevey woman was luckier last week when she was hit by a train after falling at the Vevey station, surviving the accident but sustaining serious injuries. Swiss newspaper 20 Minutes carries a story 2 November saying that she was taken to the Chuv (university hospitals) where a leg was amputated, but no one contacted her husband, despite the woman having a cell phone and identity papers on her. Her husband told the newspaper that he only learned the next day, nearly 24 hours later, why his wife had not returned home.
Ban on commercial radar alerts part of new system
UK motorist driving on left causes serious accident in St Gallen
Accident caused when young man drove on the wrong side of the road - Photo St Gallen Police
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Drivers who follow other cars too closely on highways are committing a “serious” and not a “moderately serious” crime and should have their drivers licenses lifted for three months, the Swiss high court in Lausanne has ruled.
The court ruled in favour of the Service de Navigation in Vaud, which had taken a driver’s license away for three months. He appealed and saw the sentence reduced to two months by a Vaud cantonal court. Today’s ruling dismisses the earlier Vaud one.
The ruling comes the day after the Swiss government set out its plan, Via Sicura, to improve road safety in the country and reduce by 25 percent the number of road deaths and injuries.
The number of deaths has been reduced in the past 10 years by 40 percent, thanks to security measures, says Bern, but 349 people lost their lives in 2009 on Swiss roads and 4,708 were critically injured, roughly a dozen a day.
The cost in human suffering is too high, argues the government, but the cost to the health care system and to the economy is also unacceptable.
According to the high court, the driver who followed another at between 5 and 10 metres was taking far too great a risk: he would have had only 0.3 seconds to brake suddenly and avoid the driver in front of him on the A9 where he was caught tailgating, and he would have needed four times longer to stop.
Meanwhile, among this week’s serious road accidents in Switzerland was a head-on crash in St Gallen that sent a woman in her sixties to hospital. A 24-year-old Englishman was driving on the left side of the road, probably out of habit, according to local police, and he crashed into the woman’s car.
Via Sicura’s improved road safety plan
The new Via Sicura plan, under study for several months, was presented Wednesday by the Federal Council to parliament, where it already has strong support.
TSR reports that restrictions introduced in recent years, including lowering the alcohol level that is tolerated, initially met resistance, but that the reduction in accidents has been widely accepted by the Swiss as proof that safety measures are effective.
New safety slogan: be careful, it’s Monday
Watch out: it's Monday morning
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Ever had that feeling that it might be better to stay in bed Monday morning, not get out into those traffic jams or fight those battles at work? Now you have the proof: Monday mornings are just not safe! And they are expensive, costing Swiss work insurance company Suva CHF10 million a year.
The company registers some 700 accidents at work on a normal work day, but Mondays, between 06:00 and 10:00 Suva sees an additional 45 accidents, with 07:00-08:00 the worst time, when accidents increase by 40 percent.
The main causes are people falling or tripping, at home, en route to work or at work, accidents which increase by 80 to 90 percent between 06:00 and 08:00 Monday.
Men and women are affected equally, as are all age groups. Switzerland has 300,000 such accidents a year, for an insurance cost of CHF1 million.
Average number of work-related accidents by day of the week and hour of the day (source: Suva)
The figures cover 1999-2008 and are culled from a survey of Suva’s customers, who account for half of Switzerland’s working population.
Suva notes that there could be several explanations. Perhaps people tend to do more dangerous work early Monda. But other evidence appears to rule this out.
A more plausible explanation, according to the insurance company, is offered by professor Juergen Zulley t the Medical Centre for Sleep in Regensburg, Germany.
He suggests that our internal clocks are off on Monday mornings, most likely from sleeping in late over the weekend.
The solution? Get up at your usual work time on Saturday and Sunday, so you’re not sluggish and off-schedule early Monday.
Suva admits that convincing us to maintain our work week rhythm on weekends is a tough task. The alternative, it says, is to be extra-careful on Monday mornings.
Swiss police at the start of every school year run campaigns to emphasize road safety near schools
Sion, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 63-year-old school crossing guard in Vouvry, at the eastern end of Lake Geneva, is in stable condition with head injuries after she was hit by a car and dragged by it at 13:10 Monday afternoon, 6 September. She was conscious when she was taken to the nearby Monthey hospital.
The accident was witnessed by a number of children returning to school after lunch, and they are being given counselling.
The driver of the car was a 54-year-old Zurich woman who lives in canton Valais. She was arrested and has had her driver’s license confiscated after the accident. She was found to have an alcohol level of 2,03 %o, more than four times the legal limit. According to police, she did not see the crossing guard as she came up over a hill “due to her physical state.”
Map of the changes to Cornavin station, to improve pedestrian traffic flow
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A six-year-old girl was hit by a tram in front of Geneva’s main station late Saturday and, according to the Tribune de Geneve, she remains in serious condition at the hospital. Details of the accident, under investigation, are sketchy, but the Geneva newspaper raises the question of safety in front of the station, where in 2008 the city created a 20-kph-zone with pedestrians given priority.
The area is crisscrossed steadily with tram, bus, taxi, bicycle and pedestrian traffic, raising public complaints about too many distractions for people crossing the area.
Major renovations at the station, part of which are designed to improve the flow of pedestrian traffic inside but also around the station, are an additional distraction.
The growing number of bicycle riders in the city, who often ignore traffic rules, has been cited by the TPG on a number of occasions as a problem for tram drivers. The Tribune reports that since the start of 2010 Geneva has had seven tram-bicycle collision, one of them fatal to the bike rider, and 11 tram-pedestrian accidents.
Vaud police seek witnesses to hit-and-run in St Prex
Aigle, canton Vaud (GenevaLunch) – Aigle was the scene of two serious but unrelated traffic accidents over the weekend, one a train crash and the other an autoroute accident where a drunk driver hit two road workers who are both in critical condition at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne.
The train crash occurred late Friday afternoon 27 August, when two TPC trains collided about 800 metres south of the Plambuit station between Le Sépey and Aigle. An elderly woman was seriously injured and five others suffered lighter injuries. All had to be taken to hospital by helicopter due to the steepness of the rail line in the area. Police are investigating the cause of the accidents. The trains did not derail but the cars suffered heavy damage.
Alcohol, speed factors in autoroute accident
Two cantonal road workers who were cleaning up the remains of an accident were critically injured on the A9 autoroute Friday at 21:20 between Aigle and St Triphon (heading in the direction of Valais). Police were directing traffic from an earlier accident, at 20:30, with one of the cars involved parked in the emergency lane. A driver in his 30s, from Valais, did not slow down and suddenly swerved to the right, hitting the parked car. It was pushed into the two road workers, who were thrown 20 metres into the parked police car. The driver, who had been drinking, is in police custody.
Three-year-old in serious condition, truck driver sought
Vaud police are asking for help from the public in identifying a truck driver who hit a three-year-old girl last Tuesday, 24 August, on the Jura side of the Penguey roundabout, at 10:25. She was with her grandparents and her baby brother, who was in a stroller, crossing the roundabout. The child was behind her grandmother who turned around to see the child thrown by the truck. Police are looking for a blue and orange truck: telephone +41 21 557 9021 or the nearest police station with information. The grandmother rushed the child to the Morges hospital without contacting emergency services or the police. The girl is in serious condition with multiple fractures. She was later transferred to the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne.
Bern's fireworks for the Swiss national holiday were cancelled due to rain but on the other side of the Alps, towns were able to have displays
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) - The First of August national holiday in Switzerland was not a quiet one for emergency services. The east of the country was swept by high winds and rain late in the day and during the night from Sunday to Monday, causing flooding in Schwytz and St Gallen. A man drowned in Lake Constance, in the Valais resort of Crans-Montana a car veered out of control in the village centre and injured seven.
The accident in Crans-Montana occurred shortly after noon Sunday 1 August when a 74-year-old man lost control of his car for reasons that are not yet clear, drove onto a sidewalk where he hit five people, then hit the window of a bakery, damaging several vehicles in the process.
Storms opened up around 20:00 Sunday evening in central and eastern Switzerland, causing streams to overflow, blocking roads in some areas, but also putting a damper on holiday fireworks planned in canton Bern and notably at the Bruenig Pass. The city of Bern received a heavy dose: 2 cm of rain in less than an hour. Winds in Neuchatel and La Broye reached 90 kph, according to the national weather service and hail fell in some areas of the country.
A 49-year-old man fell into Lake Constance from his boat late Sunday when a storm suddenly whipped up on the lake and part of their equipment went into the water. The man fell overboard while trying to get it back. The friend who was with him tried to pull him back into the boat, unsuccessfully. She called police immediately and a 50-person, 15-boat international rescue team spent four hours looking for him, to no avail. The search continues Monday morning.
Links to other sites: TSR (Fre), 20 Minutes (Fre)
Truck veers off A9 near Martigny, car flips off A1 in rush hour near Rolle
Spectacular police chase for thieves of BMW, 40 cigarette cartons on A9
Rainbow next to the A9: police caution that drivers need to remember to slow down when dry weather is followed by showers
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “Drivers need to remember to leave more distance and to reduce their speed when the roads are wet,” cautions Vaud police spokesman Philippe Jaten, in the wake of a series of accidents in the region this week. “And in particular to make sure their seat belts are fastened,” he adds. Jaten says it is difficult to say, looking at a short time, if the number of accidents is higher, but “we’ve seen some spectacular ones.”
Three serious accidents occurred in 36 hours on the A9, in Vaud and Valais, the most recent at 14:30 Tuesday at Charrat near Martigny. A truck veered off the road for unknown reasons, as the driver headed from Sion to Martigny. He had to be cut from his vehicle and was taken to hospital in Sion. Traffic was reduced to two lanes after the accident.
Slow down, leave space on rainy roads
Vaud’s rain-pelted roads this morning likely played a role in a one-car accident on the A1 autoroute at rush hour, between Aubonne and Rolle, heading towards Geneva.
A9 early morning death in Valais, A9 later in Vaud
The truck driver from the early morning A9 accident was taken to Sion hospital
Update 15 June Sion / Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One person died and another was injured shortly after 04:00 Monday morning when a car and a truck collided on the A9 autoroute near the town of Vernayaz. The truck was heading from St Maurice towards Martigny when the collision occurred, for unknown reasons, and the driver of the car was thrown from his vehicle and killed immediately. The truck driver was injured and was flown to the Sion hospital.
The car caught fire and was totally destroyed. Police have not yet identified the dead man and are seeking anyone who can provide information about the accident. In particular, they are trying to determine if the car was stopped on the shoulder of the road and if so, why. Tel: +41 27 326 5656
The driver of the car has not yet been identified, say Valais police
The A9 was closed in the direction of St Maurice to Sion for part of the morning, with enormous tailbacks once it opened.
Later in the day, on the canton Vaud stretch of the A9 between Aigle and St Triphon, a driver lost control of his car, heading in the direction of St Triphon, at 18:00, for reasons not yet clear. The car hit the central divider, then flipped over several times. The driver was thrown from the car and was unconscious when emergency teams arrived. He died at the scene of the accident.
The accidents bring to four the number of deaths on Valais and Vaud autoroutes in just three days. A couple from Ontario, Canada died Saturday 12 June when their tour bus overturned in the Goms Valley. Another 28 persons were injured in the accident.
Cyclist and biker near the University of Lausanne: both need license plates for insurance coverage
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government decided Tuesday that cyclists will need bicycle licenses for 2010, so prepare to pay CHF5-10 by 1 June for your new bicycle license.
Anyone caught riding a bike without a license is subject to a CHF40 fine. The license covers riders for responsabilité civile (RC), or third party insurance, in case of an accident, for up to CHF2 million francs. Ninety-percent of the population is already covered by RC insurance, but for varying amounts.
Parliament has been debating lifting the license fee, sometimes referred to as a tax, with the centre and right parties arguing that administrative costs outstrip the revenue.
The Federal Council decided that since Parliament has not yet taken a vote on the issue, and the 2009 licenses are valid only until 31 May, the 2010 tax must now be assessed. It points out that the cost of a bicycle accident can often be very high. If, for example, an accident victim is out of work for some time due to injuries, the compensation claims can be expensive.
Airplane over Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Five people died in Switzerland in airplane crashes in 2009, the lowest figure since 1998, records released Tuesday 20 April by the Swiss Federal Transport Office show. There were fewer pilots, 3,685, down from 4,039, but they had an additional 100,000 hours of flying time in total.
Sixty percent of the accidents involved small planes up to 2,250 kg, with helicopters responsible for 21 percent of serious accidents and gliders for 11 percent.
Deadly weekend on region’s roads: high speed chase death, two accidents
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A high-speed chase in the early hours of Sunday led to the shooting death of one of the thieves of three luxury cars, a 20-year-old French man, resident in France. The cars were stolen from a garage in canton Bern, and police there quickly alerted their colleagues in cantons Fribourg and Vaud when the cars were spotted traveling at high speed towards Lausanne. The first two cars pulled over and the thieves abandoned them when they realized they were being chased. The third car stopped near a roadblock in the Sévaz tunnel near Broye.
A Vaud police officer, seeing the car coming at high speed, shot at it, killing the passenger.
A1 Gland-Rolle accident: one seriously injured; Epalinges, Gland and Gingins deaths
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Three people have died and one is in serious condition following four separate accidents in Vaud since Tuesday. A woman in her seventies died following an accident in Gingins Saturday morning. In another accident early Sunday a 20-year-old man was airlifted to the Chuv university hospitals in serious condition after he lost control of his car on the A1 autoroute between Gland and Rolle, heading in the direction of Lausanne.
The Gingins accident occurred when the woman failed to see a vehicle coming from her right.
Road safety tests, Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Statistics published by canton Geneva Tuesday 23 March show that road accidents have been falling steadily in the past five years, with improvements in virtually all categories measured (inattention, speed, road conditions, and more).
The figures provide some details behind the averages. The worst day of the week for accidents is Friday and the time of day with the most accidents is between 17:00 and 18:00.
Heading towards Lausanne, three lanes on the A1 autoroute, January 2010
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss national highway department says that the first month of a Swiss experiment near Lausanne has been successful. Eight months of road works led to the opening in mid-January of emergency lanes to traffic at peak times on the A1 autoroute between Morges and Lausanne. The accident rate in 2009 on the stretch of road was on average one a week, further clogging the road, used by 90,000 drivers a day. There was only one accident during the first month of the new system, one-quarter of the previous rate.
Saint Prex, Vaud, Switzerland 13 January: snow near Lake Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Snow right down to the lakefront is relatively unusual on Lake Geneva, but with temperatures hovering around -1C until 08:00, and snow falling all night, lakefront villages had the kind of snow ski resorts envy. TSR reports that the airport snow was of “exceptional quality” but also unusually slippery, which accounted for Geneva airport closing until 11:00. Geneva police reported a “normal” number of accidents in the region, but one in Thonex was a little more unusual than most: a man taking his wife to the hospital to have a baby hit a tram when his car slipped in the snow during a turn. There were no injuries, reports 20 Minutes.
Foreigners’ injuries falling, as part of whole for Swiss winter sports, avalanches biggest killers
Click on images to view larger
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Foreign tourists are gradually becoming a smaller group among the total of those injured in winter sports in Switzerland, new statistics show.
BPA, the Swiss safety board, Monday 11 January issued its annual detailed statistics for non-work accidents: at home, doing sports, on the road.
Foreigners accounted for 40 percent of ski accident injuries, 18 percent of snowboard ones and 27 percent of injuries from other winter sports (average: 32 percent).
By comparison, the figures for 2003 were: 47, 29, 28 (average: 40 percent).
Foreigners accounted for 19 of the 39 deaths from winter sports in 2007, the most recent year noted, up from an average of 15 out of 40 deaths a year recorded for the five years from 2003 to 2007.
Knees for skiers, shoulders for snowboarders
Knees remain the most vulnerable body part for ski injuries, while shoulders and the upper arms are for snowboarders.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A man died when his car crashed into a tree in Geneva and another when his car rolled into a field in Valais, another man died while base-jumping in Lauterbrunnen, and a railway worker was run over by a train at the Zurich train station, in a 24-hour period Monday and Tuesday 22 December. The series of unrelated deadly accidents brought to 21 the number of people who have died on Geneva roads in 2009 and to seven the number of people who have killed themselves base-jumping in Lauterbrunnen in 2009.
The Geneva driver was a 57-year-old Russian man, resident in Geneva, driving a gray BMW. He was heading from the Place des Nations shortly after 04:00 on the Route de Ferney when he lost control of his vehicle.
African roads are the world's worst, for numbers of accidents (image: WHO, click on image to view larger)
Geneva / Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Roads kill 1.3 million people every year – some 3,000 people a day – and the United Nations estimates that the number will rise by 60 percent in the next few years. Half of those who die are pedetsrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Switzerland’s transport minister, Moritz Leuenberger, told the first ministerial level world conference on road safety, which opened in Moscow Thursday 19 November, that deaths and injuries can be reduced if safety regulations are increased and enforced. He pointed out that Switzerland has reduced its road traffic deaths more than fourfold since 1971 despite a large increase in traffic during that time.
Leuenberger, who presided over one of three key discussions at the United Nations WHO conference, says that safety education campaigns are essential, but they can’t hope to compete with James Bond style advertising on the part of the automobile industry.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in canton Vaud late Saturday nabbed a biker whose souped-up Honda CBR600 was going 200 kph in an 80 zone on the cantonal road between Senarclens and Cossonay. His license was immediately confiscated and he is being charged with several offenses, including illegally modifying his bike and going 115 kph over the speed limit after the 5 kph margin of error was allowed.
Update 31 August 06:30 Martigny and Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The week’s end death and serious injury toll from non-road accidents in the Lake Geneva area in Switzerland was high, with 2 young men in critical condition after a swimming pool accident in Martigny and a diving accident in Prangins, and three people dead from mountain climbing accidents.
An American student, 20, is in critical condition, reports the Tribune de Geneve, following a diving accident Sunday afternoon at the Plage de Promenthoux in Prangins. Diving is banned along the lakefront in the area because of the shallow water. He was flown by a Rega helicopter to the Lucerne paraplegic trauma centre after receiving emergency treatment at the site of the accident.
A 23-year-old and two friends climbed the municipal pool fence at 05:00 Saturday, according to 24 Heures, and once in the pool two of them noticed that their friend was missing.
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of road deaths in Switzerland in 2008 was 357, a 7 percent decrease in the number of fatalities over 2007. Serious road injuries fell 9 percent and slight injuries were down 5 percent over 2007, according to Swiss Statistics, out 20 August.
This is the lowest number of fatalities recorded since 1945, and yet the number of passenger vehicles in circulation on Swiss roads went from 63,000 in 1945 to almost 4 million today. Since 1971, the year most road deaths were recorded – 1,622 – these accidents have declined dramatically.
Russia’s record as Europe’s worst country for road accidents, with 10,000 deaths a year looks set to continue with 300 people dying in just three days at the end of July. The government blames bad roads, poor or little training and an attitude of many drivers who “think they can break the law and get away with it” the BBC reports Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev saying. Moscow Times
Geneva and Ollon, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two dramatic accidents in the Lake Geneva region within two hours have killed a 10-year-old boy and critically injured several others. The first, in the center of Geneva on Boulvard Georges Favon in Plainpalais around noon Wednesday 22 July saw a motorcycle slam into a police car with its sirens going and lights flashing. The biker is in critical condition and the two police officers, whose car ended up against a lamppost, had to be cut out of their car. (photo, 20 Minutes)
In Ollon, a 10-year-old boy was killed when the car driven by his father was hit broadside by a heavy vehicle around 14:00. Police were nearby, answering another, minor accident call.
Update 14:00 Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The weekend list of accidents has lengthened, with the death in Lake Constance of a 22-year-old man added to those of four climbers in Valais, and Ticino police reporting that a gardener for a golf course was killed while mowing the course. Six people were injured just outside Geneva on the Route de Thonon when a car apparently attempted to pass two other cars near Anières, causing the cars to flip over onto a bank. (details, Tribune de Geneve )
Police are investigating the drowning in northern Switzerland, but first reports are that the young man went swimming after drinking with friends late at night and when he didn’t return they raised the alert.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva area media are sending out the alert that too many drivers are well over the speed limit in the 30 kph zones in city centres and around schools, with two accidents in a week that have put three children from Geneva in hospital, with serious injuries. Tuesday 30 June a 7-year-old boy was the latest accident victim when he was hit by a truck next to a pedestrian crossing on the rue Dancet near Plainpalais.
The first accident occurred 25 June in the St Jean district, a story broken by GenevaLunch, whose reporter Jared Bloch was one of the parents at an end-of-year primary school party that ended in tragedy: a brother and sister left the fete and were hit by a car on the crosswalk in front of the school.
Related: 20 Minutes, Tribune de Geneve (Fre)
Lake Geneva region, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The long Pentecost/Whit weekend was marred by a number of deadly accidents in the area. In Neuchatel a 33-year-old Swiss woman drowned in Lake Neuchatel near Colombier 31 May, apparently after getting cramps while swimming. A 52-year-old man from Bex died when his glider crashed, for reasons that are not yet clear, near Gryon. He had left the airfield at Bex shortly before and was heading for the Vaud Alps.
Lake Geneva area, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – An 18-year-old died late Saturday night when the car in which he was a passenger went off the road between Assens and Echallens in Vaud and turned over several times, ejecting him. The cause of the accident appears to have been excessive speed. Three other young people in the car suffered slight injuries. In two other accidents, several people were injured. Saturday early afternoon a car driven by an 87-year old, going from Veytaux to Vevey in Vaud, left its lane and hit another car.
