First, it is not a good habit to generalize a person to a whole nation. You do not even know if she is Swiss or not.

Second, if you are moving in a new culture and new country, the best habit is to learn about their rules and way of living. Maybe a better approach would be to ask her what is wrong, instead of leaving the scene and ranting here. That way you have the chance to defend yourself if you are not wrong and also learn from your mistakes if you are wrong and disturbing the residents somehow.

is leaving your engine running illegal or not?

There is no excuse for the rudeness, but it would help our expat/foreigner image if you all realised that everything is forbidden here, unless it is explicitly allowed.

Rules of the road, with associated on the spot fines are listed here. Bigger crimes have to go before a judge,
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/741_031/app1.html#ahref0

You must turn the engine off, paragraph 326-2 carries a fine of CHF 60

You must leave a 3 meter wide passing lane when you park, paragraph 208-1 brings a CHF 120 fine.

The road was narrow and a dead end: it might have been a private road where traffic is not allowed through. Under the no-through road sign will be an extra smaller sign stating it is a private road. Often there are aluminium plates with lots of printing explaining that you can be fined by the residents association for driving or parking there!

After three years here Phil, how do you avoid being caught?

Unfortunately, this would have a detrimental effect on the forum. Threads would see an 85% cut in their length and an approximately 95% cut in impotent rage...

Abbie, I don't know how long you've been here, but when I first got here, I had run-ins like that all the time. In fact, it seemed like I had at least one negative encounter a day.

My issues always seemed to happen in parking lots. I accidentally hit a parking cone once, and you would have thought I ran over a basket of puppies the way the parking attendant acted. It made me feel very embarrassed and nervous, and like I just couldn't do anything right.

It took about 6 months, but now I rarely have negative situations happen. I guess there's just a steep learning curve here, but once you get the hang of "the system" and just learn to not sweat the small stuff, things get better. I promise!

this is funny because where i grew up we welcome new culture and different peoples and we do not start to scream at peoples because they do not alway s do things our way.
I guess some peoples need to go outside of lalaland Swiss Kingdom and see there is another world where you can fart with no someone yelling at you for it.
It make me feel mad as there is enough terrible things going on in this world,War,food and water shortage,cancer,but some peoples get all round up because your kid have a candy that fall on the pavement.
Of course if someone start to be rude and throw garbage out of the car window,or park their car on a a bus stop and all sort of bad things ,i do not agree but peoples need to be more forgiving.

You are being a bit casual about this incident. My hard earned Taxfränkli went into that pavement and you Ausländers have nothing else to do as to making it sticky and showing that you don't have control over even small kids. What do you think would happen if everyone would act in such an irresponsible way as you do?
I will tell you: People would get stuck in the sticky surface, get late to work, loose their job, get agressive, massive losses on the gross national product, Inflation, strikes, hunger, war.
Please instruct your breed to only mess around in your premises.

Yours truly,

a Swiss (and I guess it's ok to write in the name of all my fellow countrymen)

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So that you find ggressive tones in France or in Britain charming ? sorry, I do not.

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keep the engine running is not illegal but regarded as stupid. I however well remember the three days when I had the car of my brother (K. had died four days earlier due to late side effects of cancer, the same sort I survive(d), and his car was in the same state) and had to park it in places where it could be started up by running down a road for hundred meters ! and when I visited his mother in law, on my departure, an old lady complained and I threatened to get up to her and strangle her and thow her out accross her balcony !

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If you ever check up the facts you see that SH City President Walter Bringolf and US President F.D.R. were not lying when concluding that it simply was an error. What happened on that fateful 1st April to Schaffhausen was terrible, and some friends of mum got crippled or killed then, but it was just a fraction of what happened to people who got attacked really by American and British bombers. And if your research into history does not even tell you that beside Schaffhausen, only the area around Basel SBB railstation got bombed in WWII then you do a bit of "outing"

and that you object to loud parties suggests some ideas about your personality
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... and RUDE because you blow all this nasty stuff into the face of the cyclist waiting behind you in front of traffic lights and rail crossings

Can we just conclude that Americans are a nuisance and be done with this topic please?

I did/do struggle with this as well, part of it is the language and the way it is pronounced, German tones highlights different sylables and words in a sentence so to the English speaking ear it sounds very aggressive and demanding. I had a great German teacher who could mimic both English sounding Deutsch and Deutsch sounding English when I heard it it was one of those ahah!! moments, I went home and hugged my (Swiss) wife and realised she sounds a lot more aggressive and demanding than she is. Prof.T help me here.

I always do a sharp intake of breath when someone calls after me with "Sie!" if, for example, I've forgotten something at the cash desk at Coop/Migros. It's the German equivalent of someone shouting "You!" in English which would be the height of bad manners and just one step above shouting "Oi!"

On the other hand I have to say it's not as grating as someone calling you back with that long drawn out "Haallloooo!" *shudders*

And there's another thing I noticed. We all tend to speak louder and to pronounce clearer when talking with people who don't communicate in their mother tongue.

They can't call you "Frou" or "Ma", because this would be incredible rude. Normally they call "Hallo, Sie" in Zurich or "Hallo Dir" in Bern.

Push a screw driver as deep as possible in both ears. It will hurt for a moment but the effect is amazing.

But you people didn't experience Italian families at dinner. The friendliest discussion will sound from the range of a starting jet to artillery barrage.

Don't mention them. My Italian Nonna could overdo any ACDC-record by herself. And her daughters and daughter-in-laws were quite the same. My father always said, that he needn't go to a harbour, with so many sirens around. They took it as a compliment, I know exactly what he meant.

In my oppinion you should translate the "Sie!" with "Sir!" or "Madam!" (depending on your gender) rather then just with "You!". As you sure know there is a distinction in German between the polite form of address and the informal form of adress.
The polite form of you is "Sie", while the informal form of you is "Du".

In English there is no such distinction. This is why words like Sir or Madam are used to distinguish between formal and less formal forms of adress. If you literally translate to English you do not realize, that the "politness", which in in English is expressed with extra words, is in the grammatical form of the German word.

Thanks! I never thought of it like that before!

A bit OT but I remember a Simpsons episode where Homer is lamenting the differences of being referred to as "Sir" depending on which end of the sentence it appears...

"I'll show you to your table, Sir." is so much better than "Sir, you're making a scene."

Hi,
I do not throw on the ground candy or anything keep them in my pockets until i find a bin and i do not have kids so they do not do that.
What do you make off all the Beer cans,Soda Bottles in the trains and on the pavement,i guess you will say it s the auslander because no Swiss will do that.
I think next time you see something wrong you should ask the nationality of the person as you think peoples from other land are the one only doing stupid things.
Read again my message and you will see i do not agree with peoples who do stupid things,but there is a limit and if you were ever to go to America and tell that that it s the Auslander i can tell you the peoples will fell ofended.
Oh and if there is Auslander here it s because they fill the job the Swiss company can t find Swiss who have the expertise.
So as the Smart Swiss go abroad and broden their work experience and horizon.