Having ridden bikes on and off for a while in the uk, in general most drivers are ok, will move over and let you pass.

So just what is it with the Swiss??? I am now riding my bike to work, now I have to ride through Oerlikon and I have to say the drivers are complete and utter morons, they will swerve and block you! it seems to be a swiss drivers mission to try and knock off motorbike / scooter riders.

slightly ironic that at the slopes the swiss barge everyone out of the way and refuse to queue, yet in the car they get all arsy when someone tries to overtake

I feel better now I got that off my chest

Agree. Been riding the bike into work for a few weeks now and had similar observations. A cabbie even tried to pull me off the bike after trying to run me over at an intersection where he ignored my right-of-way.

If you drive a bike with 50+ccm you're supposed to wait in traffic jams and are not allowed to mass overtake...

your also not supposed to use a mobile phone, yet every morning I pass a very high number of people sitting in there car, swerving to block, while on the phone. Not being allowed to overtake is one of the most stupid laws I have ever heard!!

Not really that stupid if you have a low powered scooter and are likely to cause more problems with an overtaking manoeuvre than if you are riding a more appropriately powered bike.

The way I understand it is you can overtake with a bike to the left side of a vehicle so long as you don't cross over a solid white line, a broken white line is no problem to cross over while overtaking.

Depends on the driver I guess.

Some are clever, many are total morons.

I am often on a bike, not a motor one.

After more than a decade commuting by bike on the city and being an avid cyclist I ride quite fast and am aware of the traffic and I am normally able to anticipate what the pedestrians, cars and other bikes are about to do. So I can cruise the city safely and swiftly.

It is more dificult with pedestrians off course because they tend to wander aimlessly unaware of everything around them, so you have to be more careful.

Drivers are much more predictable, they follow the traffic rules as robots and are quite slow to start after stopped a traffic lights etc, this make it easier for a biker to pass them.

But sometimes, you cross real morons.

Yesterday for example, I was riding my bike through Kilchberg on my way back home.

This is an small village with almost no traffic.

I was descending and approaching a "right priority" crossing, a car was coming from the right side a mature driver on it ( around 55 I guess ).

So he has priority, I must let him pass first, I am descending so I have to brake to reduce my speed to let him pass, he has an engine that makes easy to him just to go past the intersection quicky to free the way so I can pass.

I am then calculating his speed and slowing down to allow a comfortable window of time for him to pass.

What he does ? he plant the brakes in the middle of the crossing and just in front of me !!

I had to brake hard to fully stop. WTF ?

The idiot instead of passing, got scared by the bike and fully stoped blocking me the way in the middle of the 4 way crossing. incredible.

My idea of buying a quad... is not there anymore after reading this thread..

It isn't just bikes, a car with foreign plates is also fair game for being pulled out on or squeezed at junctions... and heaven forbid you should be a nano second late away from a set of lights. So in short there are way to many arseholes behind the wheels of cars here.

I had a road legal quad in the uk, was great fun, no real point in having one here as your not allowed to take them off road or green laneing.

they are also REALLY unstable on tarmac, most don't have a rear diff so will tilt really easily if you take the corner a bit to fast, and they are nearly as wide as a car, so even if the swiss where not blocking you you'd find it hard to overtake.

its not a stupid law, and breaking one law doesnt mean you have the right to break another. Not being allowed to overtake in traffic is actually quite a sensible law in a place like switzerland where the ignorance of drivers in traffic means they are totally not bike aware.
Oh and i am a bike rider, and i do NOT wait in traffic jams, as always i proceed with utmost caution, treating every other vehicle on the road as a potential source of severe pain... and yes i do it quickly and effectively
So stop ranting get on and enjoy riding your bike safely ... and keep it rubber side down ..

Nobody's allowed to overtake - regardless of engine size - unless there's a clear space for you to pull into once you've overtaken. Zipping along a row of cars waiting at the lights isn't on. There's often a solid white line there for a reason. Discuss this with your insurance when you're knocked off by eejits who don't look... believe me, I tried

bikes are incredibly annoying - when im sitting in my car and i have 2 bikes to the left and 1 to the right with another couple trying to squeeze through just to get to the front of the lights.(one scraped along the side the other day and just shrugged and sped off)

bikes should follow the same rules as cars - i.e. the highway code (or whatever it is)

in short incrdedibly irritating and unthoughtful road users

sorry but i disagree with you ... please do nut lump us all together.. its like saying all car drivers are idiots and unsfae on the road...
Motorbikes do have to follow the rules of the road, and as with car drivers some do and some dont... theres a lot of car drivers who are totally NOT bike aware.. and they should be ...

Why anyone sane would buy one of these things is beyond me. Combining the maneuverability of a car with the exposure of a motorbike and the handling of a bucking bronco on glass with a chili up its ar5e. If you really want to kill yourself, there are much cheaper ways that involve less inconvenience to everyone else.
I was once offered the opportunity to use a 2000 cc quad to get out to my field site in Mali. After a 10 minute trial ride, I took a bicycle. Playing roly-poly with a quarter ton of vehicle did not strike me as fun at the time.

And back on topic, yes Swiss drivers are venal towards bikers, but they are venal towards everyone else on the road.

Cheers

Jim

agreed - i did see someone on a bike this morning TEXTING and listenign to an Ipod and wobbling all over the road apparently hoping noone would bump into them..

not sure of the legalities of them here, but they are EU legal so in theory you should be able to register them here as an import, but I always liked the look of these types of quad / buggy, a nice roll cage should anything happen

http://www.quads4kids.co.uk/products...-legal-buggies

in the UK they fall under quad rules so the engines have a limited output, but the limiters are easy to remove

Is it just me or are these quad things counter-intuitive to experienced 2 wheeled motorcyclists? I've had two short rides and found that using the handlebars like I was riding a motorbike had me constantly going the wrong direction! Guess we subconsciously use counter steering more than we think.

they take some getting used too, especially as if you lean into the corner they will topple on top of you lol. They are frankly crap on the road, but off road they come into there own. I see a lot of the new quads have normal car wheels and tyres on now, as well as a much wider track, and lower clearance, guess that helps there road manners quite a bit, but still no diff so all there inherent problems are still there.

Unfortunatly mine was stolen the week before I left the uk

In Canada, when one takes their license for bikes, we are supposed to understand that a bike has the same rights and laws as a car. Would you do all the passing you do on a bike in a car? probably not, but we do it anyway. I have had my bike license for 20 some years and have to say here in Switzerland is one of the safest places I have ridden (maybe that says a lot about Canadian respect for bikes (or lack of)...).
Filtering inside the white line depends on the person in front of you letting you pass or not, outside the white line depends on oncoming traffic (or not), as I have seen more illegal wrong side passes than staying on the right side.
Just feel out the traffic and if they don't let you pass, buy a bike with a big enough engine to do it quickly...