Three rules for dealing with the police

1. Never volunteer information
2. Never speak to them while under caution, without a lawyer present
3. Never lie to them. (Actually, they assume you're lying, so telling the truth might cause considerable confusion ).

Regardless. Call a taxi or the ambulance or something. If you dont have a licence, dont drive.

Ted, Art 95 of the Federal Legislation might shed some light for your situation:

http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/741_01/a95.html

My German isnt very good and I am sure someone with a better grasp of German will come along soon and clarify/confirm. It says that you'll just face a fine. A hefty fine probably. No jail, unless you've driven on a revoked/denied licence, which isnt the case. I will speak to a proper lawyer for a peace of mind if I were you though.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

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Remember when someone annoys you, it takes 42 muscles to frown, BUT it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and b****-slap the mother-f***er upside the head.

see the good side of it; You may not need a permit to stay here, so many people have permit problems.

Ok, everyone calm down! There will be no prison time.

The fact that the OP did not change his license over is an administrative "fault" and not a criminal one. His license is perfectly valid.

OP, they will send you the fine to your UK address. Then you will do the following:

- pay the fine.
- apply for the TSC Assist which is the legal assistance thing. It's like CHF100 per year and well worth it
- SLOW down.
- change over your license ASAP.

Unfortunately not once he was stopped and fined for not switching. At that moment his license became invalid in Switzerland.

That's a fine not criminal offense, a friend of mine was caught with his homeland license (Non-EU) and was just warned to change and fined for that, nothing more.

The law is explicit on this. If you go over the time limit then your license is not valid until you take a test - having to take the test is seen as a punishment in itself. Yes, many have managed not to get caught and changed after more than a year - me included.

A USA colleague was stopped - she was 8 months past the time when she should have changed her license. Her license was invalidated on the spot. Her fine was much larger than the OP and she had to do 12 hours compulsory training and take the full test before being allowed back on the road... with a Swiss license.

You were very lucky - imagine the scenario if you had had an accident and seriously hurt somebody? Does not bear thinking about, does it?
I'm the first to take the Michael at the Swiss obsession with tidyness and order - but some things are just not messing with.

I would stick to the UK licence.
Trying to get a Swiss licence at this stage is pointless.

In my opinion, you did the correct thing giving your address in the UK.
Hopefully the most you will get is a fine as a foreigner; i.e. UK citoizen with UK licence in Switzerland.

There are plenty of us that use a car in both countries (Switzerland and UK)and therfore if you do not own a car in Switzerland then I think holding your UK licence on the basis of using a car when in England is a bloody good excuse.

You can only supposedly hold only one licence and your excuse (justifiable) is that you use a UK licence when in the UK.

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I do not have friends..........I have contingent liabilities

OKOK after all this i still not 100% sure where I stand.... Ill understand if i get a big fine, a ban, have to take compulsory training. I have called my boss to try and sort a lawyer out for me to seee tomorrow but i am still killing myself not sure whether I am looking at jail time or not... A straight yes or no would help an immense amount. Again i much appreciate everyones input into this.

Not sure what to tell you but i think you should quit asking on the forum as it might confuse you and stress you more, best is see the lawyer and check with him, he knows the laws and should be the best advice.

I don't think it would be jail time at all, maximum it would be a fine i assume.....again, there's nothing you can do at this hour of the night so go have a good sleep now and check the lawyer tomorrow.

I've responded above (see my post again below) - and the answer is no. But to a proper lawyer for a peace of mind. Not a forum.

Yes, good luck from me too and sorry I was a bit harsh - I've done some pretty stupid things when I was young too! Get some proper legal advice and pay the price. Prison is very very unlikely (it would have been a real possibility had you hurt somebody or had been drinking). Tell us how you get on. Sleep tight.

Did your friend give her Swiss address or her foreign address?


I didn't go to jail over a car accident so you are not going to jail over a speeding ticket. Tomorrow sign up for TSC Assista.

Emmmmm this is not 100% accurate in every case. I was stopped, two years after I came here, when I still hadn't gotten around to changing my license. Fine was 120 CHF, and I changed it the following day. There was no compulsory training, and my license wasn't invalidated on the spot. So its not that consistent.

I think we're not getting the whole story here. 380 francs fine was for what on the original stop - simply failing to change over the licence?

Plus committing a major moving violation to get yourself in the spotlight again....

In my opinion, it won't be as bad as jail time but it will be worse than sitting on a cocktail stick which pricks you on the bum.

So if i go dual residency for 2010 between the UK and Swiss they cant exactly do me driving on an invalid licence. So as far as I can see they can only do me for the speeding

Just a question, when you get a Swiss license, they take your British one? I'm from the US and when I got my Swiss license they just took my US (Ohio) license, put a stamp on the back that said it was no longer good in Switzerland, and returned both to me. What they didn't realize is that it is required that you get a new license every 4 years in Ohio, and my renewal was due only a few months later. So now I have a US drivers license (with no nasty stamp) and a Swiss license. Could it be that I'm in violation of Swiss law?

No. You just can't use it in Switzerland.


OMG. Seriously. You're not going to "get done" for anything. (where's the eye roll thing). You'll get a speeding fine which you will pay.
http://www.tcs.ch/main/fr/home/versi...htsschutz.html
Did you sign up for Assista yet?

When we changed our licences over, they took our UK licences away. We tried to argue with them, but to no avail. Our Swiss licences have our UK number on them however. We then had difficulty insuring my car which is till left at our UK address!