Hate Switzerland Project
I often have to drive through Switzerland when visiting home: my route takes me from Karlsruhe (Germany) to Rome (Italy) and back. Thus I enter into Switzerland at Basel and go straight down the highway A2 all the way to Lugano, where I enter Italy.
My trip is approximately 1200km. I often drive alone, and since it is quite annoying having to spend money to spend the night at a hotel along the way only because of a couple of hundred kilometers missing, I try to do the trip in one shot. That is why I am quite happy that most of my trip in Germany takes me on speed-limit free Autobahn. In Italy, speed limits are 130km/h (though it is being risen to 160km/h), but nobody really cares. That is where Switzerland comes in.
In Switzerland, about 300km of my trip, speed-limits are terrible: long parts have to be driven at 80km/h, while the top speed-limit is 120km/h. What is really annoying, is that the limits are enforced. With speed traps. And there are lots.
The problem is, I need (want) to get through Switzerland as fast as possible. Another problem is that I have (nearly) no money and swiss tickets are pretty expensive!
What to do about it? Well, since the time I got two tickets in a strip of about 10km of highway (costing each about 80€ even if both the times I was only about 10km/h over the limit), I have had the idea to document the speed-traps. Not that I can know them all, or even fool the police or mobile traps, but at least I could avoid the most obvious. Here's what I found out.
Note that these traps are the ones I have noticed: the list is probably incomplete. And often speed-traps are not always active, so you might get lucky. Anyway, here are the speed-traps on the A2 in Switzerland (north to south Basel to Lugano if you go down the list, other way round if start from the bottom).
Some more notes:
- Km numbering starts at zero at both borders and ends at the St. Gotthard tunnel. It's about 170km Germany-St. Gotthard and 110km Italy-St. Gotthard (so the highest km-markers are 170 and 110 when coming from north and south respectively).
- I haven't seen a single speed trap south of the St. Gotthard tunnel (They're italians there. And they're germans on the other side…).
| Km? | Direction? | What about it? | Checked? | Picture? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13.800 | going north | Just south of Basel, on the inside (poles between guard-rails). | Yes (once) |
 |
| 20.400 | going north | This is ridiculous (and dangerous): inside a tunnel. That's right. Inside the "Arisdorf Tunnel", going north, on the left-hand side, at one point there is a small bay like an emergency-halt bay. I could only make out the speed-tester, so has to be confirmed. But I remember very clearly on another trip that the car in front of me got "flashed" inside a tunnel and I couldn't believe it, so this could be very well it. | No (not yet) | |
| 26.800 | going south | Basel cross, on the inside (poles between guard-rails). | Yes (once) |
 |
| 28.400 | both directions | Basel cross, on the inside (poles between guard-rails). The speed-trap for going north is more north than the speed-trap for going south. | Yes (once) |
 |
| 89.800 | going south | On the right-hand side of the road, big dark-gray boxes. There were road works last time, only 80km/h allowed. Shortly north of a cross. Is around Luzern. | Yes (once) |
 |
| 90.800 | going north | Big dark-gray boxes on the outside. Shortly north of a cross. Is around Luzern. | Yes (once) |
 |
| 93.000 | both directions | Big dark-gray boxes on the inside, between the lanes; just outside the nothern entrance of a tunnel named "Reussport" (or something like it). Is around Luzern. The speed-trap for going north is more south than the speed-trap for going south. | Yes (once) |
 |
| 158.300 | both directions | Between the northern-most two tunnels (they are called "Inschitunnel I" and "Plattitunnel", of which the first one is south relative to the second) of a series of tunnels. On the inside. | Yes (once) |
 |
| 169.500 | going north | On the inside. | No (barely seen) |
Want to contribute? I'd really apreciate it! Have more infos, pictures,
details, or just want to let me know your opinion about the "Hate
Switzerland Project": send everything to
hate-ch@nicapicella.com
Last modified: 15:33 28/Sep/06 |•| What does all this mean?