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This year there should be fewer flashes on Swiss roads, at least if the financial planners in the cantons and cities are right. This is demonstrated by an assessment of the budgets of the German-speaking Swiss police force. Compared with the previous year’s estimates, the authorities expect a deficit of 8.7 million francs in administrative fines. Most of them occur in road traffic.
Contrary to expectations, the reason for this is not primarily Corona. The canton of Bern expects a shortfall of revenue of 5 million francs and does not explicitly justify it with Corona. Many more had “empirical values from recent years,” as a police spokeswoman writes upon request.
In the canton of Basel-Land, Corona is also not the reason for the budgeted fall of a record 6 million francs. The development of traffic and the dismantling of the speed control system in Tenniken played a role here. It is also likely that the budgeted 17 million will not be reached in 2019. Traffic violators in the Basel area only raised around 12 million francs.
Zurich city police have a record for buses per capita
However, financial planners disagree everywhere on whether Corona has a greater effect at all. The city of Zurich expects buses to be 62.1 million Swiss francs in 2021. That’s the same as budgeted for the previous year. Patrick Pons, spokesman for the City of Zurich Finance Department, said on request:
The estimate is realistic, also from the point of view that “motorized individual traffic quickly normalized after the blockade was lifted.”
Further down the Limmat in Baden, even an increase in bus revenue of 753,400 francs is expected. A total of 4.25 million Swiss francs is expected in Baden. Martin Brönnimann, Head of Public Security, explains it this way: “From 2021, all technical elements of traffic control should be available to the city police.” It concerns the mobile and semi-stationary traffic control systems as well as the permanently installed lightning box at the “Gstühl” junction, a first for the canton of Aargau.
It is still too early to judge how the epidemiological situation will have a lasting effect on the traffic behavior of the population. The Baden police are not only responsible for the city of Baden, but also cover various surrounding communities. This is another reason why the Baden police expect more buses than comparable cities.
Fine of up to 143 francs per inhabitant
A look at the expected buses per capita shows that the city of Zurich is alone at the top, as in previous assessments. Zurich expects 143 francs per inhabitant. For comparison: the Aargau canton police calculate with only 7 francs per person.
However, these evaluations should be treated with caution. Many passersby are asked to pay when they are driving too fast or even if they are in the red. That is also the reason why the small canton of Uri always ranks high on the per capita list. In the canton of the north-south traffic axis, offenders pay 117 francs per inhabitant. Uri is followed by Nidwalden (81 CHF per capita) and Basel (around 77 CHF per capita).
As the survey shows, speeding is the number one cause of buses virtually everywhere.
“Bus budgets are not an incentive for the police”
The bus budgets would have no impact on the police, says a spokesman for the Basel security department. If they issue fewer parking tickets, it doesn’t affect other items, like uniforms or wages. On the contrary, high fines have no advantages. It remains to be seen how well city and cantonal financial politicians have predicted the future, and it also largely depends on the course of the corona pandemic.
“The most important thing for us is road safety,” says a spokesman for the canton of Schaffhausen police. Fewer buses would mean “that road users adhere to the applicable regulations and that, therefore, we have good road safety.” If it comes out like this, it says: “Goal accomplished!”
