Former Swiss Life finance director’s sentence cut to 22 months, suspended
Geneva gripped by court case over couple’s involvement in girlfriend’s death
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A judge in Sion this week sentenced the driver of a van that crashed into a military vehicle on the A9 autoroute to 22 months in prison, going beyond the public prosecutor’s request for 18 months in prison and a 5-year suspended sentence. The accident took the lives of two of the driver’s fellow workers, both Portuguese, one age 62 and the other age 21. It also left three people injured, one of them, a 22-year-old Valais worker, who was left in critical condition.
The van crashed into a military vehicle that was stopped in the emergency lane of the A9 autoroute near Vernayaz in October 2010. The driver was over the legal alcohol limit. The judge, in passing the sentence, noted that he had already been condemned in 2002 for drunk driving and in 2004 he had killed a cyclist while driving although no alcohol was involved, according to Le Nouvelliste. The judge also noted that the man had falsely claimed at one point during the trial that one of his victims had been driving the van.
He gave up drinking only two months ago and had shown little remorse towards his victims, the judge added.
Several other court cases around the country are making headlines this week, including:
Zurich, Swiss Life, Dominique Morax, former head of finances for Swiss Life, saw his sentence reduced from 30 to 22 months for swindling the company’s directors in a 2002 deal; he was sentenced in 2010 but appealed.
Geneva, a court is hearing arguments that the owner of an Italian trucking firm should be charged with negligent homicide, in addition to his driver, for the death in March 2011 of a 20-year-old scooter rider. The driver, Serbian, was obliged by his boss to driver longer than the legally permitted number of hours, the victim’s family argues.
Vaud, the court is hearing arguments that the death of local councillor Catherine Ségalat in Vaux-sur-Morges was murder, while her stepson Laurent Ségalat’s lawyers say her fatal fall down a flight of stairs was an accident. Much depends on testimony from witnesses, some of whom say there was “tension” between the pair and others who say not. The politician died in January 2010.
20-29 age group responsible for one-third of licenses lifted
Photo, Valais police
NEUCHATEL, SWITZERLAND – The number of drivers licenses removed by police in 2011 on Swiss roads fell by 2.6 percent, with a drop in every age group except those over 70, where there was a nearly 10 percent increase. The group that remains the most significant is drivers ages 20 to 29, who accounted for one-third of the 76,913 people who lost their licenses.
The main reasons for having a license taken away were speeding, down 9 percent to 32,231 cases, and over the alcohol limit (driving with 0.8/1000 or more, down 6.2 percent to 17,217 cases.
The legal limit is 0.5 for alcohol but for first-time offenders measured at 0.5 to 0.79, police generally give them a warning. These, too, were down by 5.5 percent to 6,374 cases.
The most frequent license ban is for one to three months, in 63 percent of cases, but in 20 percent of cases the license is removed for an indeterminate period, and there was a 7 percent increase in 2011 for these.
The 2011 figures were published Friday 10 February by the Swiss Statistical Office in Neuchatel.
Drunk car driver was fine but his license was removed (photo, Basel cantonal police)
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss voters will go to the polls to say what they think about fast and dangerous drivers, “chauffards”, the Swiss Chancellery announced Monday.
More than 105,000 signatures were gathered for the popular referendum which would change the Swiss constitution to toughen the penalties for speeding, drunk driving, dangerous driving and other crimes.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Drivers age 20-29 have the highest number of people whose licenses were taken away in 2009: 24,858. But drivers over age 50, with nearly 15,000 licenses removed, make up the fastest growing group.
Swiss federal road safety statistics were published Tuesday 23 February and they show a 5 percent increase, to more than 34,000 drivers, in the number of people whose licenses were taken away for speeding. Drivers whose licenses were removed because they were over the alcohol limit, with 0.8 per thousand or more, decreased by 7.8 percent, some 17,000 fewer. The two make up the bulk of cases of the nearly 75,000 licenses removed in Switzerland by police in 2009.
A growing number of people, some 9,000 last year, had their licenses taken away for inattentive driving, generally due to using a cell phone or GPS system.
Road safety test in action
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Fatal road accidents due to driving under the influence of alcohol have dropped 45 percent since the introduction in 2005 of the 0.5 per thousand blood alcohol limit.
Almost 15 percent of all road deaths are still due to drunk driving, and the main offenders are men, the young, and habitual drinkers, according to the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention, BPA, in a campaign coordinated with the cantonal police forces to raise public awareness of the dangers of drunk driving.
Update 16:00 Genthod, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Russian media have been carrying stories about the accident Thursday 19 November in Genthod where a Lambhorgini driven by a 22-year-old Russian crashed into a Golf driven by a 70-year-old German, both resident in the Geneva area. The older man is in serious condition in the hospital. The Russian articles and a flood of comments and e-mail received by GenevaLunch are focusing on the likely names of those involved, with children of politicians and rich businessmen heading the top of the list of suspects. The names are openly published in Russia, with one notable family mentioned in the Guardian Tuesday afternoon.
In Switzerland, the Tribune de Geneve/24Heures published a story Tuesday afternoon saying three of those involved left Geneva Sunday on a private jet, thus avoiding having to give evidence to a Geneva judge. (Ed. note: the story cites “our sources” without details and appeared after Russian media reports).
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Police in Geneva 5 July arrested a man and sent him to prison after a drunk-driving test showed his alcohol level was 3.27 0/00, well over the legal limit of 0.5 grams/litre in Switzerland. He told police he had been at a party and wasn’t under the impression he’d had that much to drink. He was arrested for a similar offense in 2006. He’d been driving from the Rue de Lyon to the Rue de Servette.
Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – If ever there was a time to keep your weight off the gas pedal and to skip that second drink before getting into the car, this is it. Vaud police have begun an intensive two-week campaign to catch drunk drivers and speeders, in part to draw attention to a recent increase in deadly accidents.
