So I'm on holiday with the wife and a friend and had to go from Munich, Germany, to visit a friend in a small town in Switzerland. We looked at the train costs.

Remember the exchange rate is about $1.4 to 1 Euro (thanks to Helicopter Ben Bernanke)

~40 Euros for 3 hour train ride then
~20 Euros for a 45 minute(!) bus ride

Each. That's 180 Euros for each of us. For 180 miles.
It's a 4 minute walk from the train to the bus, and a 10 minute walk from the bus stop to the friend's house. Normally not a problem, but I have a bad limp from a bad knee sprain 4 weeks ago. And my suitcase's wheels collapsed thanks to Air Berlin's luggage handlers.

So I said, let's just rent a car. 55 Euros per day, plus 125 Euros for taxes and fees, because we're returning the car in another country. 180 Euros, fine, it's a wash, it's faster (200 km will be on the Autobahn where we haul ***), and we don't have to schlep our suitcases, especially the long walk to the house.

Rental car was a 1-series BMW hatchback Diesel, only 10 Euros more than a cheapie car. Promising. Until we stopped at a gas station just before leaving Germany on the assumption that fuel is cheaper in Germany.

First of all we have to buy a sticker that essentially is a toll for the roads.

Switzerland only sells em as good for 1 year (!), for 31.50 Euros. Great.
Then while in a tiny town, I decided to see how the Bimmer would feel on corner exit from a roundabout. It's 11 PM and I haven't seen a single soul in miles. As I accelerated from the roundabout, big flash. ******* speed camera.

And get this - lots of complaints online about speed cameras being used as revenue here, with horror stories of huge fines where the authorities send you a nasty gram in your home country............

Boy governments SUCK everywhere you go...

 

Switzerland sucks. The Swiss are a bunch of automobile hatng fagggots and they should all die.

 

This. I have an American assed hunting knife and eat cheddar, and hersheys chocolate. They can all die in their "neutral" world hating cornhole of an existance. I ******* dare the swiss to send me a ticket. I will use it to light my charcoal that I use to grill my beef/pork/chicken hotdogs tomorrow.

(J/K, I only use hebrew nationals. Great f'ing hotdog)

 

I'm pretty sure there's a €10 toll sticker too, valid for 10 days. Also, speed cameras used for revenue isn't really a surprise now is it?

 

Shut up Euro trash!

 

Yeah, that's totally evil!

The governments and large corporations are conspiring to enslave us all!

Look out, the New World Order is just around the corner!

Down with civilized society!

(Other vague, conspiratorial maxims)!

Am I one of the cool kids now?

 

I got my bull pup AK-47 in yesterday. Can't do that in cheese land, now can ya.

 

I dont think the police will come to the US looking for their speeding ticket money.

 

JP, they don't have auto racing. THEY DON'T HAVE AUTOFUCKINGRACING, HOW IS THAT OK?

 

*

 

Here's the thing. You were in a rental, also rented from Europe. So they are going to send a letter to the place where you rented the car, demanding the fine be paid. If the place is legit (ie AVIS, Hertz, etc) and not a mom and pops shop, they are going to charge your credit card for the amount of the fine, as you probably agreed to that EULA when you opened the packag....I mean the door.

Everybody in Europe loves the Swiss. Did they move in your lane to block you? In a road that has a 120km/h limit, they all stay on the right, doing anything between 110 to 115. If you try to overtake them by doing 120 or more, they move from the right to the left to block your way and keep you from speeding. Incredible.

 

The Swiss suck as far as cars/driving is concerned. But everyone is right about paying it. If they don't Just stick it on your credit card, then forget about it. There is no way for them to chase you for it in the states. (but they will probably put it in your card)

 

Joe:

This is what I mean:
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/related.asp

Speed cameras and red light cameras have caught on all over the world as a means of gov't revenue. There are multiple studies that show that they do NOT reduce traffic crashes and/or fatalities. Governments sell it to the public as "safety", but really do it purely for revenue. Governments are like that. It's the nature of the beast.

It seems the fun driving culture that I enjoyed here a decade ago, is now gone, other than on the Autobahns.

 

Not knowing how to travel in Europe must suck. I never paid anywhere NEAR ~1eur/mile using any form of transportation, and I did everything from drive, to take the train/bus, to fly allover Europe during the ~year and a half that I lived in Germany.

 

I think we're all in agreement there. Redlight and speed cameras are revenue generators, just like LEOs who sit on long, boring stretches of highway running radar.

So?

Take a step back from the immediate situation and look at this in a larger context. As you say, it is the nature of governments to collect revenue. Well, why not collect it disproportionately from those who are violating the law?

I won't argue as to the nature of the law being uniformly just (eg: speed limits are some times arbitrarily low) but given that the traffic law is what it is, I'd far rather that revenue be gathered in this manner than from an additional uniform tax. This is little different from state-run lotteries. You can choose to pay into it, or you can choose to exempt yourself from paying into it.




Never really had this problem either, during my admittedly rather shorter stay. Granted, we never went to Switzerland, but we covered a fair bit of Germany and some of The Netherlands.

 

There is a plus side to speed cameras. Once they have been there a while two things happen.

First, you memorise where they all are

And second, the police cannot justify using resources for actual speed traps, when te cameras are doing it for them.

I have been in England four years now, I hated them at first, but once I realised these two things I am all for it. Still sucks when you are in unfamiliar territory of course, but they haven't caught me yet and I have never even seen a speed trap here.

 

Doesn't somebody produce a GPS Nav system which has a database of all known speed cameras that warns you as you are approaching them?


Here in the states, the most nefarious deployment of speed cameras which I can think of is in Phoenix, AZ. There are numerous "trap zones" on I-10, however they seem to be quite ineffective. The locals know where they are, so even if you're from out of town, you quickly learn to sense when traffic around you is slowing suddenly, and fall into line.

What sucks is that they also have mobile speed camera stations- basically just an SUV that parks on the side of the freeway. I can't recall whether they put signs up warning you of an approaching mobile speed camera, but again, avoiding them is mostly just a matter of learning to read the traffic ahead of you, no different from how it's done on any highway in the southeastern US where speed traps are a common occurrence. Don't lead the pack, just settle into the middle of it.

 

Most newer GPS units (esp. those brands that are sold in Europe as well as the States) have databases of speed cameras in them, I know Navigon is pretty reliable for tracking them the majority of them down.

However, there are two systems that beat the GPS databases everytime.. One, Germany uses (and I'm sure others do as well to varying degrees) portable speed cameras so there's no way of knowing where they are. Two, "average speed zones" those of you who watch Top Gear should be familiar with those.

 

Wow, I can't wait until rail travel is here in the US for all the savings over driving my cars. Thanks Hussein Bin-Obamakhan.

 

I for one welcome our new speed-camera-wielding overlords.