Stan Wawrinka, fast ball man: “200 kph only when serving”

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Too many drivers slow down just for fixed radars LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Stan Wawrinka, best known as a tennis player and Olympic champion, is the new poster boy for canton Vaud’s “the road isn’t my racetrack” police campaign. His face will appear on some 1,700 giant posters in every commune in Vaud  for its annual [...]

Verbier skier, 77, dies after crash landing

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 77-year-old Serbian man whose  home was The Netherlands died Saturday afternoon while skiing in Verbier. He was skiing near the restaurant Au Mayen in the Mayentzet area at 14:15 when he headed left around the restaurant in order to rejoin the ski trail below it. He suddenly found himself on a [...]

Cow killer driver leaves calling card

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – One driver who was out celebrating the long weekend in canton Vaud found himself in deep trouble early Saturday. At about 06:30 his car spun off the St-Légier, chemin de Bende road in the direction of Châtel St-Denis, veering right and then swerving left, through a fence and into a herd of [...]

Preventing falls would cut home accidents significantly

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BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Safety Council says that preventing falls, particularly in the higher risk young and old age groups, would have a significant impact on the number of home and hobby accidents. It published its first-ever guidelines for professionals 12 September to improve prevention, noting that 50 percent of non-occupational injuries and 80 [...]

Accidents, assaults, web scams mar Swiss holiday

Geneva police seek other victims of online apartment scam GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The first of August national holiday in western Switzerland was marred by serious road accidents,  assaults and drunken driving. A man was arrested in Geneva for several web scams, some of them on English-language social network glocals.com, that involved taking down payments for [...]

And then there were 4: Gotthard road to be widened

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BERN / ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Expect miracles. The end is in sight for the long holiday delays to get through the Gotthard Tunnel, a 10 km main north-south channel for road traffic in Europe. The Swiss government announced Wednesday that it will widen the major artery, which opened in 1980, by building a second road [...]

Swiss travel inside country up 4% in 5 years

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And it takes them only 92 minutes to cover the distance GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss are on the move, with train travel inside the country up in particular, figures from the new federal “Microcensus” show. Each Swiss resident six years or older “covered a daily distance of almost 37km within Switzerland in 2010. Two-thirds [...]

Swiss freight transport rose in 2010, latest figures show

NEUCHATEL, SWITZERLAND – Freight carried by road and rail increased by 2 percent in 2010, showing some recovery after a 9 percent drop due to the faltering economy in 2009. The new figures are the most recent annual ones for the industry, published by the Swiss Statistical Office in Neuchatel.

Weekend deaths: murder, roads, fire, mountains take their toll (update)

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Italian dies on Matterhorn late Sunday afternoon Update 11:50  GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The past four days have taken a high toll in deaths and injuries in Switzerland: a well-known wine writer was murdered by her former companion who then committed suicide early Friday, three mountain climbers lost their lives in falls and four youths on [...]

Police seek witnesses, Martigny tunnel fatal car crash

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SION, SWITZERLAND -  Canton Valais police are seeking witnesses or people with information that will clarify what caused a head-on crash that killed a 65-year-old woman and sent five others to hospital late Wednesday, in Martigny. The crash occurred Wednesday 18 August at 17:30 in the Mont-Chemin tunnel, near the Transalpin roundabout. The 66-year-old driver [...]