this rule gives more power to Swiss police

From January 1, 2025, the new traffic rules make it possible to penalize excessive vehicle noise more effectively and simply, but this involves much more. Explanations.

New traffic rules are now applied from January 1, 2025. One of them caught our attention. It states that it is now explicitly prohibited to produce exhaust noise, including detonations, if this can be avoided ????????.

Exhaust noises and other “vroom vroom” are therefore punishable by a fine from this year whereas they were not until now? “Not quite, it’s more subtle than that», Explains Romain Riether, lawyer and specialist in traffic law who noted an interesting detail.

Gas shot in a parking lot

“When reading the road traffic ordinance, we note the disappearance of an introductory passage. This change, which seems cosmetic, is not necessarily so, because it can have significant repercussions,” notes Romain Riether.

Indeed, by comparing the Ordinance on road traffic rules 2024 and 2025, we note the complete deletion of this sentence ????????

Which is replaced by this one ????????

From now on, noises that can be avoided will be avoided at all times.

Any driver causing noise deemed avoidable may be sanctioned, regardless of the time or geographic area. Accelerating loudly in a parking lot may be fine.

Hearingof the policeman, the fine of the Public Ministry

For those who need a little reminder, here are the avoidable noises that could already be punished until now (spoiler: slamming doors is one of them)????????

Concretely, if a police officer considers that through your behavior, you are producing an avoidable and unnecessary noise, such as a gas burst, he can ask you to immobilize your vehicle and report you directly to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

For Romain Riether, the police officer’s assessment of the avoidability of noise is fundamental. It is therefore difficult to prove to the agent who reports you that the noise was unavoidable. “In this specific case, it will be word against word, and that of the person fined vis-à-vis a sworn police officer does not weigh much in the balance.“, he specifies.

As for the Friborg cantonal police, Bernard Vonlanthen, communications assistant, confirms that the new provisions will make it possible to “carefully monitor the behavior of drivers”. But does removing the context make it easier to report to the public prosecutor? For the Geneva lawyer, this will in any case make it more difficult to cancel sanctions.

The lawyer remembers a case where one of his clients had started his sports car in broad daylight in a parking lot at Geneva airport. He had been fined for “excessive noise”, he took the matter to court and the fine was cancelled. “In this specific case, it was difficult to speak of an inhabited area or a place of rest, because planes with louder noise were passing overhead, this denunciation was relatively absurd, but, given the new regulations, this situation would perhaps not be judged in the same way,” concedes Romain Riether.

Accumulation administrative fines

Will these new requirements increase the number of denunciations? According to the lawyer, cases of intentional whirring are in the minority, so far the most common concern vehicles that have been modified. “These cases are not subject to the sole discretion of the agents, of course, because the vehicle will be subject to noise tests carried out either on site or subsequently by the vehicle office,” notes Romain Riether. When contacted, the Neuchâtel cantonal police explained that, when an officer stops a vehicle that he suspects of having been modified and which presents excessive noise, he carries out an official measurement with a precision sound level meter.

Romain Riether, however, would like to draw our attention to a particularity of road checks. Indeed, when a vehicle is stopped, say for excessive noise, officers can subsequently carry out a complete check of it.

The agents check the condition of the tires, the operation of the lights, etc., and if you are not following the rules, this can lead to an accumulation of fines. “In Geneva, the fines department makes, if I may say so: ‘a shopping list’. He adds up the fines and everything adds up,” explains the traffic law specialist.

He takes the example of another case where a motorcyclist attracted the attention of the police by making excessive noise. The police noticed that he was wheeling, which for the administrative authorities corresponds to a loss of control of the vehicle and results in a withdrawal of his license. We therefore remember that attracting the attention of police officers is not a good idea when it comes to road traffic and even more so now.