Vignette for Swiss motorways?

fivetide

Iceweasel wrote: »

We don't have road tax - tourists and other foreign visitors pay VAT on anything they buy and pay fuel tax on their petrol and diesel purchases just like we do. The roads are funded from general taxation which visitors contribute to.

A vignette for foreign visitors only, would be very unfair, and wreck our tourist industry.

Everyone should be treated equally and fairly.

IIRC under international rules all vehicles should have valid registration in their home countries.

Having said that I know folks in france who have their UK registered car with no VED disc on it and have ran like that for over 4 years.

I knew someone would pedant me on that. I nearly put "road fund license" in brackets too.

It doesn't seem to stop the Swiss or the Austrian tourism industries does it? I see no issue with having similar one week or one month 'discs' for overseas cars.

The legality is irrelevant. I'm not saying we CAN do it I'm simply putting forward an IDEA that it would be good if we COULD do it.

Remember if you have a car here for more than a year (i beleive but haven't checked) you must have it re-registered in the UK so that ANPR can check insurance etc and if needed you can pick up speeding fines etc.

As things stand, as you pointed out with your friends in France people don't bother. I don't think that is a fair system at all.

If we scrapped RFL completely and put it on petrol (arguably a fairer 'gas guzzler' tax then I might agree with you a bit more.

Iceweasel

fivetide - Forgive me if I appeared to be correcting you - I'm sure you understand the difference between a road tax and the VED - but many don't.

Your point about folks who stay longer term is a good one - but it doesn't really affect those who regularly make trips to their home country, as long as they satisfy the rules there.

Every country suffers from overstayers with foreign cars.

Very few countries do much about it though.

I know of folks who live in Spain who twice a year drive across France, leave their car at Calais docks and cross as foot passengers.

Their car is never in any country more than 3 months, surprisingly, it has Spanish insurance (using the chassis number rather than the reg number), but has no MOT or VED disc.

There are always a few old bangers parked at Calais for the above reason.

Completely illegal in the UK but it hasn't been back for over 5 years.

OP - my apologies for hi-jacking the thread - I think we have digressed a bit too far.

Just buy a vignette at the border if you feel you need one.

fivetide

Iceweasel wrote: »

fivetide - Forgive me if I appeared to be correcting you - I'm sure you understand the difference between a road tax and the VED - but many don't.

That was why I plumped for the layman's term

Given the phrase "tax and test" is used for every secondhand car I can't see the situation changing anytime soon.

I do like a sensible and reasoned debate though. shame so few people can do it.

As you were OP. Concur with Iceweasel here, get one at the border (plus see if you can lift it off and flog it on eFence when you get back. Looks like a real money maker going on some of the stories here!)

Aretnap

Went to Switzerland for a week the summer before last. Didn't know about the vignette thing. Didn't get one. Made several motorway journeys. Didn't get stopped and heard nothing about it since.

However from what I hear the Swiss police aren't exactly famous for their sense of humour or their sympathy for ignorant foreign tourists, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend this approach.

Iceweasel

Aretnap wrote: »

Went to Switzerland for a week the summer before last. Didn't know about the vignette thing. Didn't get one. Made several motorway journeys. Didn't get stopped and heard nothing about it since.

However from what I hear the Swiss police aren't exactly famous for their sense of humour or their sympathy for ignorant foreign tourists, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend this approach.

You were very lucky.

They have a liking to sit just after a motorway exit - to catch you after the deed is done.

They also trawl along the lines of parked cars at motorway services. They do this in Austria too.

I have twice been asked by the Swiss border guards on the way out why I didn't have a vignette. They look at you dubiously when you tell them you didn't use any motorways.

zagfles

Iceweasel wrote: »

A better comparison for Switzerland is with Slovenia, who were forced to offer short term vignettes for tourists or their EU funding would have been curtailed.

A one year motorway vignette for a car in Slovenia costs €110 - but a one week vignette costs only €15

Going from Austria to Croatia I need to cross Slovenia - it takes me 40 minutes on the motorway.

So unless you're staying less than a week in Croatia, you'd either need 2 weekly ones or a month long one, costing EUR30 either way, ie about £25, compared to the "greedy" Swiss charging £27. Not really a lot of difference. Especially as the Slovenians still haven't completed the motorway from Koper to the border with Croatia in the west - we got stuck in a massive traffic jam there.

But I can easily avoid that - by taking an alternative road which takes only 10 minutes longer.

Tolls need to be realistic.

Austria is better example of how to do it and play fair to everyone.

An Austrian one year vignette costs €82.70 and a 10 day one costs €8.50

I buy them happily as I think the Austrian roads are good value for money.

The Austrians also have separate additional tolls for some tunnels and mountain passes.

Yes and petrol is much cheaper in Austria which easily pays for the vingette.

Iceweasel

Perhaps my comment on the 'greedy Swiss' is not being understood as I wanted it to be.

Let me clarify that statement.

I feel that the annual vignette in Switzerland should be considerably more than the CHF40 / €34 / £27 that it is again this year.

If I understand it correctly their government figures have supposedly shown a loss of some sort for several years and they need more income for maintenance.

We the tourists are subsidizing visits to an already expensive country by overpaying proportionally for our use of their motorways.

If an annual vignette cost say CHF100 and there were lesser periods available at CHF10 for a week, or CHF20 for a month, for example, then I would have no gripe at all.

They did have a government proposal to do exactly that but the canny Swiss citizens voted it down at a referendum a couple of years ago. They have voted against every price increase for the last 20 years.

http://www.englishforum.ch/transportation-driving/157387-swiss-vignette-increase-chf40-chf100-pa.html

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g188045-i336-k6812712-Increase_in_the_price_of_Swiss_vignette-Switzerland.html

They have had annual vignettes only, since they started this malarkey back in 1985.

silverwhistle

I've never had an issue with the Swiss vignette; I used to live just over the border in Italy where the motorway was extortionate - around £13 Torino to Aosta, for example (one way) - plus far more expensive petrol.

If you don't like it, don't go there or avoid motorways, but I don't think it is particularly expensive. For me it was far cheaper getting back to the UK via the Great St Bernard than the Mt Blanc route: fill up with cheaper fuel in Switzerland, toll-free roads in eastern France, fill up Luxembourg again (even cheaper).

Richard53

Thanks to everyone for the very helpful replies.

I don't think avoiding motorways is an option. If I was travelling solo on the bike, I would set the satnav to avoid highways and forget about it. But I have to get from Northern France in the morning, pick someone up in central Geneva that afternoon, and be somewhere on the side of the Matterhorn by night, so motorways are always going to feature, and to be honest I'd rather buy a vignette and not have to worry about the route.

I don't mind the cost. It's their country and they can ask what they like. It's my choice to visit, after all. 40CHF for 14 months seems reasonable to me.

I had read that the Swiss police were very strict about a) having a vignette, and b) the vignette being very firmly attached to the windscreen. Now I know why - I hadn't reckoned on there being a second-hand market for them

So I'll rock up at the border and pay cash - nice and easy.

Thanks again.

knightstyle

5 years ago we spent a few days in Switzerland and went on motorways several times without a vignette never stopped and the first we knew about needing one was when we were leaving the country.
We entered by a small road and there wasn't even a passport check at night.