Road Traffic Law in Switzerland

The document is explicitly titled as a Strafbefehl (penal order) and always comes from the public prosecutor’s office or, in some cities, the city magistrate’s office. It has a case number, a short description of what is alleged to have happened (statement of facts), the legal provisions supposedly violated, followed by the sanctions (monetary penalty/fine), the procedural costs and information on the right to lodge an objection.

If you do not agree with the penalty or with the description of the facts, you can lodge an objection (Einsprache) against the penal order. This works similarly to an objection against a payment order in debt collection proceedings (Rechtsvorschlag).

You do not have to give reasons. However, the objection must be submitted in writing, by registered mail, and – most importantly – within the 10-day time limit.

The deadline for filing an objection is 10 days and cannot be extended.

The deadline starts to run even if you do not accept the registered letter from the postman and do not collect it. In that case, the 10-day period starts on the seventh day after the delivery notice is placed in your letterbox.

Wird aus einem nicht selbst verschuldeten Grund (z.B. eine schwere Krankheit) die Frist nicht eingehalten, kann ein Gesuch um If you miss the deadline for reasons beyond your control (for example a serious illness), you can file a request to have the deadline restored. Otherwise, the deadline is simply missed and the penal order becomes final.

No. It is sufficient to state that you lodge an objection (Einsprache) against the penal order with case number XY.

First of all, by lodging an objection you gain time and can calmly consider what further steps are possible and necessary.

Second, you gain the right to inspect the file. The public prosecutor issued the penal order based on the case file; only by reading these documents can you (or your lawyer) assess whether the penal order is correct or not. It can also be clarified what impact the penal order may have on your driving licence.

Usually it takes several weeks or months before you hear anything from the public prosecutor’s office. In many cases, the objection is the reason why the file is examined in detail for the first time. The prosecutor will then usually summon you for an interview. For this, it is crucial that you – and if applicable your lawyer – know the file well, so that you are on an equal footing with the prosecutor. If you do not know the file, the prosecutor has a knowledge advantage, which means a disadvantage for you.

The objection also means that you do not have to pay the fine as long as the objection has not been dealt with.

Important: In some cases the public prosecutor’s office forwards the penal order directly to the criminal court. The penal order then becomes a statement of charges. The downside: you can no longer simply withdraw your objection. The court must decide, which can quickly lead to procedural and legal costs of more than CHF 1,000 – but only if you lose the case.

Prosecutors tend to send the case directly to court if they consider the objection hopeless and assume that a hearing will not change their view. A lawyer still has options to influence whether the penal order is passed on to the court in this way.

Yes. You can withdraw your objection up until the prosecutorial proceedings are concluded, i.e. until before the prosecuting authority files an indictment with the criminal court.

However, in practice you are often only informed of the indictment when it has already been filed with the court. So do not wait until that stage. Your lawyer can clarify this with the prosecutor in advance.

If the prosecutor has had no additional work between the objection and the withdrawal (e.g. no questioning, no witness interviews), the withdrawal usually costs nothing or only a small administrative fee. Unlike the fixed-penalty procedure, there are no higher procedural costs just because you lodged and then withdrew an objection. Prosecutors are generally relieved if an objection is withdrawn.

If the prosecutor has to conduct further investigations (e.g. interviews), procedural costs usually go up, even if you later withdraw your objection.

If the prosecutor and subsequently the court stick to the conviction despite your arguments, you must expect procedural costs of CHF 1,000 or more. Filing an objection therefore only makes sense if you have evidence that actually exonerates you – for traffic offences, for example an alibi showing that you could not have been at the scene at the time.

If you are unsure whether an objection is worthwhile, you should inspect the file at the prosecutor’s office within the deadline. If that is too tight: lodge an objection first to stop the clock. You can still withdraw it later, right up to the court hearing.

Withdrawing the objection is final. The penal order becomes legally binding. You can no longer file a new objection. The fine (and any monetary penalty) must be paid, and in most cases this also has consequences for your driving licence.

Over 90% of criminal cases – especially traffic cases – are disposed of by penal order. If you assume that the prosecutor has enough time to review every single case thoroughly, you are mistaken. In most cases, the conviction is based solely on the police investigation, especially the police report.

Prosecutors often treat the penal order as a kind of “offer” to the accused to settle the case quickly and cheaply – as an efficient, out-of-court way to close a file. It is not a judgment handed down by an independent court, but a decision by the prosecuting authority.

Because this is a mass procedure and penal orders are effectively issued on a conveyor belt, the error rate is higher than most first-time accused expect. There are no precise statistics, but among successfully challenged penal orders, roughly one third involve cases of mistaken identity. In other words: in around two thirds of traffic convictions that were later overturned, an innocent person would otherwise have been punished.

Another problem: a penal order is not translated and can catch up with you in any of the four national languages – depending on where the incident took place.

A very practical advantage of an objection is that you gain time, can inspect the file and only then decide how to proceed. Without the file, you are left with speculation and guesswork. You can also clarify in peace what the penal order means for your driving licence.

In penal order proceedings, the authorities do not meticulously prove every allegation beyond doubt; rather, they effectively say: “On first impression, we assess your case as follows.” You are not asked to confirm this; instead, the burden is flipped: if you do not agree, you must object within 10 days – otherwise the penal order is deemed accepted.

Further error sources: prosecutors can convict people without ever having seen or heard them. They judge without having personally questioned the accused. Many people feel bypassed if there was no hearing and they never had a chance to present their version of events. Sometimes the penal order is so sketchy that it is not clear what exactly you are being accused of.

On top of that, limited comprehension, language skills or a different mother tongue can mean that people do not truly understand what the penal order says.

Finally, prosecutors are often criticised for focusing primarily on incriminating facts, even though they are legally obliged to investigate both incriminating and exonerating circumstances.

Yes, this is very common, especially if the road traffic authority issues a warning or orders a driving disqualification.

Then you pay, on the one hand, the fine/monetary penalty and the procedural costs from the penal order (prosecutor’s proceedings), and on the other hand, you also pay a fee for the warning/disqualification imposed by the road traffic authority. The authority wants to be “compensated” for its work as well.

The driving licence ban is often perceived as the more serious and painful sanction.

If you pay the fine, you implicitly accept the penal order. If you intend to object, you must not pay the fine under any circumstances. Even after lodging an objection, you should not pay – you would undermine your own position.

The objection has exactly the effect that you do not have to pay the fine as long as the objection is pending.

You lose an important part of your defence options at the road traffic authority if you do not already defend yourself against the penal order.

This often comes as a surprise because for most people the driving disqualification is the harsher sanction – and it is particularly frustrating if they believe that by paying the fine they have “settled” or avoided the disqualification.

It happens that authorities advise people to “just pay this small fine” because it’s not worth the hassle of a full procedure. Since the police and prosecutors are not responsible for driving licence measures and do not have to be experts in that area, this can turn into a trap.

The competencies are clearly divided. So you cannot really blame the police or the prosecutor, but you may regret following their advice when you later receive a letter from the road traffic authority announcing a driving disqualification, based on the now final penal order. Any statements by the police or prosecutor about your driving licence are not binding.

Many people do not realise that the public prosecutor’s office is responsible only for fines and monetary penalties – not for the driving licence. Driving licence measures are imposed by the road traffic authorities.

The confusion increases when the incident happens outside your canton of residence. Example: you are flashed in the Canton of Geneva but live in the Canton of Zug. The penal order with the fine and monetary penalty comes from the prosecutor in Geneva. But the driving disqualification is decided by the road traffic office in your home canton, Zug.

And the two authorities do not necessarily exchange data quickly or systematically. Often, the road traffic office only learns of the case once the penal order has become final and the fine has already been paid. This makes it difficult to assess the overall consequences (fine/monetary penalty/licence ban) and to take the right decision at the right time.

You also cannot rely on the police or prosecutor to be fully up to speed on driving licence law. That is simply not their job. Any information they give you in this area is non-binding.

Unfortunately not. The police record the facts and secure evidence, but they do not decide on the penalty.

The prosecutor decides on the fine and monetary penalty. The road traffic authorities decide solely on the driving licence. Statements by the police or prosecutors regarding a potential driving disqualification are therefore not binding.

This is one of the core problems and a very uncomfortable situation for many people. You simply do not know if, when, and what will happen. Will there be a fine? A monetary penalty? A driving disqualification? Will proceedings be opened at all, and if so, will they be discontinued? And how and when will you be informed?

This feeling of powerlessness vis-à-vis the authorities can be very stressful.

As a private individual, you can try calling the office. The police will usually not give you any information. The prosecutor will only do so once proceedings have been opened and file access is granted.

If you don’t want to keep calling every few days or weeks, you can instruct a lawyer. The lawyer will first identify the competent police and prosecutor’s office and the road traffic authority, then send them a power of attorney. From then on, the authorities must send all correspondence – including penal orders or decisions by the road traffic office – to the lawyer.

In many cantons, road traffic authorities have also increasingly started sending a preliminary notice to the lawyer before issuing a formal decision. This avoids the need to immediately lodge an expensive appeal with a court: you can first discuss and negotiate with the authority.

a) The “cyclist case”

Ms Muster honked because she wanted to overtake a cyclist who was riding in the middle of the lane. The cyclist slapped the car and Ms Muster wanted to talk to her – without success. The cyclist reported the incident to the police. The prosecutor believed the cyclist’s version and convicted Ms Muster of a serious traffic violation for forcing a cyclist off the road. Ms Muster was never asked for her view of events; she was not questioned at all.

Ms Muster was upset, but the incident had happened some time ago, it took place in Geneva and the penal order was in French, which she did not fully understand. The fine was not huge, so she paid it, assuming the matter was closed – an expensive lesson, but she thought she had learned from it.

One month later, she unexpectedly received a letter from the road traffic authority: her licence was withdrawn for three months – the statutory minimum for a serious traffic offence. When she asked the authority to question both her and the cyclist, they refused. By paying the prosecutor’s fine, they argued, she had accepted that no further questioning would be conducted. In plain language: she should have defended herself at the penal order stage. Now it was too late.

b) The “roundabout case”

Mr Müller drove into a roundabout. While he was already in the roundabout, another car drove into his. There were no injuries; strictly speaking there would have been no need to call the police, but the other driver insisted. The police recorded the facts and told Mr Müller on the spot that the other driver was at fault.

Months passed and nothing happened. Mr Müller assumed the matter was over. Later, he went abroad on a business trip for four weeks. When he returned, he found a notice from the post office about a registered letter. At the post office he learned that a penal order had been delivered. When he read it, he couldn’t believe it: a fine and a suspended monetary penalty against him.

He wanted to object – but the 10-day time limit had expired while he was abroad. He had no choice but to pay the fine. Shortly afterwards, he received another letter from the road traffic authority: three months’ driving disqualification. When he tried to contest this, the authority (correctly) told him that no witness hearings would be held. The authority had to rely on the findings in the now final penal order. As a result, Mr Müller lost his job as a sales representative.

c) The “main-thing-it’s-done” case

The police advised Mr Dietrich to just pay the fine for a “small incident”; it wasn’t worth starting full proceedings over CHF 300. He followed that advice. Later, the road traffic authority imposed an additional three-month driving disqualification.

You can file an objection yourself by registered mail. However, if you want to inspect the file you must contact the competent authority (see “Responsibilities”) in the canton where the incident occurred – for example in Geneva. You must arrange an appointment and then appear in person. You can inspect the file but not take it away. You can make copies, but you pay for them. And it is often hard to know which documents are important and which are not.

Here, it helps to instruct a lawyer. The lawyer receives the file by post, can copy or (better) scan it and forward it to you. The effort is manageable, especially if handled via platforms such as www.easystrafbefehl.ch (see “Services”). A lawyer can also clarify from the outset what impact the penal order may have on your driving licence, since previous measures (warnings or earlier disqualifications) often play a crucial role.

A lawyer can explain the time window in which you must surrender your licence and how this window can be influenced. As a private individual this is often much harder to manage.

No. You must serve the entire period in one continuous block.

You cannot go below the statutory minimum, even if you rely on driving for your job. If the disqualification is longerthan the minimum, you can apply for a reduction based on professional dependence on driving.

As a rule of thumb (each net, i.e. after the tolerance deduction):

• Built-up areas: up to 15 km/h over the limit – no licence withdrawal
• Outside built-up areas: up to 20 km/h over the limit – no licence withdrawal
• Motorway: up to 25 km/h over the limit – no licence withdrawal

Order the DRIVER’S CHECKLIST or use the fine calculator.

You will find a fine calculator there which calculates both the fixed fine and the monetary penalty for you.

The public prosecutor bases their decision on the file. You do not receive this file together with the penal order. Without knowing the documents, you often cannot understand or properly assess the penal order.

Only once you know the file can you judge whether the allegations are correct. It can happen that the prosecutor is misled, overlooks something, the radar image is not clear, or they do not know that you have a twin brother or cousin who looks very similar to you, etc.

It is not that prosecutors deliberately issue random penal orders just to see whether anyone objects. But as already mentioned, this is a mass procedure – which significantly increases the potential for error compared to what a first-time accused person might expect.

Especially in accident cases and situations that are not based on a clear radar photo or a clean blood/breath test, negotiations are often possible. With good arguments, quite a lot can be achieved.

Yes. A penal order can easily lead to an entry in the criminal record. The details are somewhat technical and depend on the type and severity of the sanction.

In principle, convictions for felonies and misdemeanours are entered into the Swiss criminal record. Felonies are offences punishable by more than three years’ imprisonment; misdemeanours are offences punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment or a monetary penalty.

Most penal orders in traffic law, however, concern minor offences (Übertretungen), i.e. violations that are only punishable by a fine. Even here, a criminal record entry is possible: for example, if the fine exceeds CHF 5,000 or if more than 180 hours of community service are imposed.

As a rule of thumb: traffic offences that lead to a driving disqualification of three months or more are entered into the criminal record.

You can often recognise such a serious offence by the legal reference in the penal order: if it states that you have violated Art. 90 para. 2 SVG, this generally involves a serious traffic violation. Paragraph 1, by contrast, covers minor or medium-serious offences.