Inappropriate speed, fine and challenge.
Inappropriate speed, fine and challenge.
"If a motorist is issued with a ticket for inappropriate speed, wouldn't it make sense for the police to provide the exact number of kilometres per hour he was travelling?
Adelita, Geneva
Under the Federal Road Traffic Act (LCR), everyone must obey traffic signs and markings and obey police orders. Anyone infringing the rules laid down by this law will be liable to a fine. According to art. 37 LCR, speed must always be adapted to the circumstances, as well as to road, traffic and visibility conditions. This offence should be distinguished from speeding. In fact, particularly in rainy or foggy conditions, your speed may be inappropriate even if you are perfectly within the speed limits!
Federal law provides for a simplified procedure for fines not exceeding CHF 300. Under this procedure, an authorised police officer may collect the fine. The receipt must contain at least the police force and agency, the date of the offence, the amount of the fine and the number of the offence committed.
You state that you have received a fine of CHF 550 (!). To understand how it arrived in your letterbox, we need to refer to the Geneva Code of Criminal Procedure, in particular art. 212 et seq. It is the service des contraventions, which is part of the police force, that is responsible for sending the notice to the offender, setting out the summary facts, the applicable provisions and the penalties imposed. In your case, given the lack of details about the circumstances, you could have contested this ticket within 30 days, in which case the matter would have been dealt with by the Police Court, in accordance with the ordinary procedure in criminal matters. The ticket would then have become the indictment. Despite the fact that police officers are sworn officers, it is at least not certain that the judges would have considered this ticket sufficient as regards form, since it did not contain a sufficient summary of the facts, in particular not even the approximate speed at which you were driving.
