Franky, slow down - Swiss road safety campaign
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Road Cross Foundation has gathered enough signatures for a popular vote to register their initiative that would ban repeat speeders from Swiss roads. They now have until 27 October 2010 to gather 100,000 signatures to put the initiative on the ballot. Road Cross helps victims of road accidents and their families, but it is also politically active in trying to improve preventive measures and to reduce the number of deaths and injuries on Swiss roads.
The number of fatalities has been falling in recent years but 348 people died in road accidents in 2009.
Link to the federal Road Safety Fund, which sponsors the Franky Slow Down advertising campaign
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.
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.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Vaud Monday released details of a crash in the early hours of Sunday on the A9 autoroute that killed one person and seriously injured another, as well as injuring the driver, whose condition was not made public.
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.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A man riding a scooter who was injured in an accident Tuesday evening on the Cologny quai in Geneva died during the night, and the 31-year-old driver who hit him has been charged with negligent homicide. The 43-year-old Frenchman on the motorcycle was heading from the Quai Gustav-Ador towards Vésenaz, in front of number 28 on the quai, when the car pulled out from a parking place and made a u-turn, initial investigations show.
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.
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.
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.
