GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Saudi Arabia’s Kind Abdullah Sunday 25 September granted women the right to vote in municipal elections, starting in 2015, in one of the most dramatic legal changes in the country in recent years. Women will not be able to vote in upcoming elections and there is some concern that the king’s edict will hit opposition that will further delay its implementation.
Women do not have the right to drive and appeals to the king to change this law have not yet met with success.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Speeders and drunk drivers could soon find it’s not easy to get their drivers licenses back, and not without conditions applied. The lower house of Parliament’s transport commission says it will back recommendations from the upper house to toughen rules for drivers.
The two houses are looking to clamp down on speeders who have lost their licenses for a year by obliging them to drive with a vehicle equipped with a black box that measures their speed, in future. Repeat offenders arrested for drunk driving would be required to have vehicles with ethylometres that go into effect when the car starts, for five years.
Switzerland’s death and serious injury rates have dropped significantly in recent years with tougher laws governing speeding and drinking/driving, which the Swiss safety council says is due to a mix of prevention, greater public awareness and stiffer penalties.
Ed. note: Barbara Ender, an occasional contributor to GenevaLunch, is a Lausanne-based travel editor.
Walking through history
By Barbara Ender
Zadar, Croatia (©2011, Barbara Ender)
“Would you like a free hug?”
An offer I couldn’t refuse. I turned to see a group of cheerful girls in orange T-shirts, opened my arms and embraced all the youth and joie de vivre of Zadar. A memorable, tactile introduction to one of Croatia’s most delightful cities, golden, vibrant, resilient, young at heart.
Young at heart—but old in its bones. The city is built on a peninsula, just 1km long and 300m wide. Founded by Illyrians 3,000 years ago, it has been ruled and planned by Romans, Byzantines, Franks and Venetians, attacked by Ottomans, ravaged by Huns, Ostrogoths, Crusaders and bubonic plague, bombed by the Allies in the second world war and shelled by Krajina rebels and the Yugoslav People’s Army from 1991 to 1995.
Rebuilt, restored, snug within its massive Venetian ramparts, it is a crazy quilt of architectural styles, and a miracle of survival.
Zadar, Croatia, side street (©2011, Barbara Ender)
Most visitors arrive on cruise ships or ferries and enter the city from the harbour at the western end, but I was staying overnight in a big hotel outside the walls on the mainland.
As the afternoon began to close, I walked past the tiny Fosa marina, beneath the sculpted Venetian lion on the Land Gate, through the walls into the long and narrow main street that follows the course of the ancient Roman cardo towards its crossing with the decumanus at the Forum.
On each side, enticing little side streets beckon, some dark and mysterious, others gleaming red and ochre in the dwindling light, others trying to lure me into ancient peeling courtyards festooned with laundry. High heels clatter along the limestone pavement, giggling students pass by, two to a bicycle, but I walk straight on, intent on my goal.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Nez Rouge helped 24,000 people make it home safely during the 2009 holiday season after they were unable to drive due to alcohol, drugs and exhaustion.
The group kicks off its volunteer operation for the 2010 holiday season Friday 10 December in most parts of Switzerland and a week later in the rest of the country.
If you can’t drive, don’t: phone Nez Rouge at 0800 802 208.
The group consists of local sections and you can also phone their local numbers directly, so print out the numbers and keep them handy if you plan to party during the holiday season. You can always pick up your car later, as long as you’re alive because you’ve called Nez Rouge.
Geneva – 022 710 27 77: 10 and 12 December, then from 17 December to 31 December
Morges-Lausanne – 021 702 55 10: 10 and 12 December, then from 17 December to 1 January
Eastern Vaud – 021 964 60 68: 10 and 11, 17 and 18, then 23 to 31 December
In France, the night of 31 December only, in Haute-Savoie
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.”
Expect tight security around the WTO buildings, but mainly at the CICG where the conference takes place
Several thousand in Geneva for WTO meeting, demonstration
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The barriers were being readied in front of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Thursday 26 November along the lake road in Geneva, and security measures around the area began to move into place for the start of the Seventh Ministerial Conference Monday 30 November, with several thousand people expected to take part.
Hotels have little space, but for local residents the main sign of the global talks will be disrupted traffic.
Detours and road closings begin Saturday 28 November, when 3,000-5,000 demonstrators are expected to take part in an anti-WTO march that starts at 14:30 at the Place Neuve.
Anti-WTO march Saturday after in centre of Geneva
The Vengeron exit (where the road split before the airport) on the A1 autoroute into Geneva, coming from Lausanne, will be closed early Saturday 28 November until the end of the march late afternoon. Traffic will be directed to the airport exit.
The march itinerary supplied by Geneva police:
Police in Melbourne, Australia, plan to use Twitter to publish “‘embarrassingly boozy breath readings’ recorded during traffic operations” in order to reach young people out partying, in an effort to convince them to cut back. A Victoria police official points to the example of one car stopped on three occasions with drivers who’d been drinking and said the police need to use new tools to get across the message about the dangers of drinking and driving. Straits Times, Singapore/AFP
US research on the dangers of driving while using a cell phone are finally coming to light, six years after a federal agency in the US decided not to publish them, in 2003, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opted not to do further research, reports the New York Times, which is making the full report available on its web site after two consumer groups, led by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, publish it 21 July. The data was withheld, it appears, largely out of concern over angering Congress, in an American-style state versus federal power lawmaking clash.
Mise en Scene for the Montreux Jazz Festival - photo by Jared Bloch
Watching the lake vista unfold in front of us, I think, the festival setting truly is spectacular.
After getting stranded in Montreux early Tuesday morning – beware of the early morning public transport gap between 01:08 and 05:14 – I decided to try driving. The verdict?
Updated 23:35 with Kenyan man biting snake It’s the silly season for news again. Here are some of the latest shenanigans we human beings are up to, some worthy, some less so, some just plain intriguing. Switzerland looks relatively calm compared to the rest of the world.
- A woman driving a convertible in Olten, Switzerland, was attacked by four women in a car behind her, when she braked abruptly because of a cat in the road. The driver of the second car whistled and shouted abuse at the 22-year-old convertible driver before the others jumped out and attacked the first driver, pulling her hair, then bashing her head against the car. Le Matin, Fre
- Scotland’s Susan Boyle took a dream and ran with it: the 47-year-old unemployed charity worker fulfilled a promise to her mother and stood up on Britain’s Got Talent show, met derisive smiles head on and belted out a song that now has more than six million people watching her on YouTube (Ed. note: this is some voice!) (note just in from Evelyn Ralph and other fans from Scotland in Geneva: here is an even better YouTube version, this one viewed by 8 million – we do love a true winner)
- In Norway, a man was arrested for driving while having sex – 133 kph in a 100 zone, with his companion’s back blocked his view of the road. Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
Swiss skies are filled with jet streams, mostly heading south
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The traditional Easter weekend north-south highway traffic jams have started, but initial reports are that they are less onerous than some years, with a mere 3km backup at the St Gotthard tunnel, heading south, late Thursday afternoon, 9 April. Trains and planes nevertheless are preparing for heavy crowds.
TCS, the Swiss automobile club, offers up-to-the-minute traffic advisories. The CFF rail company strongly recommends reservations for any international travel. In Switzerland the company is adding 70,000 seats and 31 trains in the direction of Valais, Ticino and Graubuenden, reports TSR (Fre).
Geneva International Airport warns travellers to allow extra time for flights this weekend and to remember that parking lots could be short on space – best is to take public transport, the airport recommends, or use long-term parking lots. Ed. note: see the GenevaLunch Cheerful traveler’s guide: traveling to and from Geneva.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Vaud drivers, as TSR puts it, are either very poor or their teachers are very tough: in 2008, only 53.7 percent of them passed the driving test to get a driver’s license, the worst record in the country. The average rate for the country was 65.1 percent, with Genevans performing a shade above average, 66.7 percent.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of deaths caused by road accidents fell by 7% in 2008 to 357, compared to 2007, and the number of serious injuries was down by 9%, to 4759.
The statistics were released 24 February by BPA, the Swis Bureau for the Prevention of Accidents which credits a variety of factors with the improvement: more low-speed (30 kph) zones, more fixed speed radars, driving courses and longer learner periods for young drivers, continued checks for drunk driving.
Geneva, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – For those hoping it was just a joke when they saw new radars being installed on the Mont Blanc bridge, and in Petit Saconnex and on the Gustav Ador quay, 20 Minutes reports that the radars will indeed be installed, and the disappearance 16 February of some partially installed radar systems is not a sign of a change of heart. The city is waiting for delivery of some parts.
The British government is reviewing a series of measures it wants to introduce to iimprove road safety and reduce the number of highway deaths and serious injuries, respectively 2,946 and 30,000 in 2007. Among the measures: two high-speed offenses could result in a permanent driving ban and limits for drugs-driving would be introduced, with a possible lowering of the accepted alcohol limit.
