Well, yesterday I drove my father-in-law 2 hours to the other side of Basel to pick up a rather ordinary Chrysler Lebaron he bought on the internet for a bargain. He wanted to do it up and re-sell it.
But because it had no motorway sticker, and he was not used to the car, we decided to take the normal road back. Turned out to be the wrong choice. Were driving for not more than 10 minutes: I was in front and I looked in the rear-vision mirror and my jaw dropped:













A woman, who appeared to stem from the jurassic era, just drove out from a stop sign directly in front of him. Nobody was hurt, but they did cart the old duck off to hospital as a precaution.

5 police turned up (where I come from it took max. 2 police to do a minor vehicle collision). It did appear that, although the woman was clearly at fault, she got more than reasonable extra attention because she was a local. My father-in-law appeared to get the third degree, and was quite upset about the way he was treated (he is from Berlin).

But IMHO this woman did not appear competent to be behind the wheel. I am just glad it was not a bicycle or a motorbike she collided with.

possibly the fastest write-off this month

you only have to search the news for Amokfahrer to get a few hints as to who's usually am Steuer when unexpected things happen like Stop signs, pedestrian areas, etc....

No offence meant to your father-in-law, but the Lebaron truely is an abomonation and taking one more of these monstrosities out of circulation is probably not a bad thing.

Maybe in the end it is for the best

Lucky nobody was hurt, and sorry to hear about the different treatment doled out to the participants, but it's not really a surprise is it...

Let's also not forget that the eye test is a one-off thing for the licence...

indeed the love of the Swiss for importing American tanks which frankly are not designed with style, corners in mind........

Litespeed, I'd be very wary about the way that the accident report is written up if the police were as 'biased' as you say.

Quite often, a portion of the blame is dished out to the 'victim' for some reason or other, which can affect insurance payouts etc. Make sure that you see and immediately object to the report if it tries to shift some blame onto your FiL.

I had a mate whose car was written off when he was rear ended after having to make a rapid stop on the motorway because of a sudden traffic jam.

On the face of it, it wasn't his fault at all. However, the policeman who wrote the report laid some of the blame on him because he was allegedly going too fast before slowing down and stopping. In fact, he was within the speed limit for that stretch of motorway and was able to stop in time, despite the traffic jam coming 'out of nowhere'. OTOH the guy _behind_ him who rear-ended him was verifiably speeding (from the skid marks/damage) and told the police that he was following my mate at a constant speed/distance, leading to the police concluding that he must have been speeding too..... The obvious fact that my mate stopped in time without leaving massive skid trails down the motorway seemed to go over the policeman's head.

As with everything here, things are rarely clear-cut and some of the most incredibly unjust situations can arise. Particularly if the other party is well connected with a good lawyer or the innocent party is an 'out of towner'.

Gav

I totally agree, American cars are not only ugly, but have always been developed on test tracks that resemble a runway with turntables at each end. Harleys Davidsons are also best used as boat anchors.

The LeBaron definitely ranks up amongst the ugliest (Chrysler seems to have patented UGLY), and certainly deserves the scrapheap. It is more the Murphys Law scenario, and the apparent police bias that was more the reason for posting.

Personally I would love to drive a Pontiac GTO (basically a Holden Monaro in Left-hand drive) around some of these mountain passes. A muscle car that does handle. On second thoughts, make it a Skyline GT-R.

No, the report is kosher. The woman drove through the stop sign, and even admitted to being fully at fault. Witnesses are all on side. In this case my father-in-law cant be faulted at all as far as the accident is concerned. What they tried to make a fuss about was car registration, but thats been cleared up.

Had it been something less clear cut (eg disputed signal, etc) then things might be different.