Bike insurance – Reasons to like Switzerland – I
I believe that with time this could be a long series of postings. Things that you don’t learn when you are tourist in Switzerland but, with time, understand why this country become one with the highest quality of living in the world nowadays (apart of having all the terrorists money in their banks).
Above is the back part of one of the millions of bikes going around here. But is also a funny example of the age of the bike. Those stamps, a bit like in Coimbra’ university we were doing with the Burn of Ribbons (queima das fitas) annual party stamps, are mandatory. They are the third-party insurance for the bike (and rider) if he provokes an accident. They cost 7chf (4 eur) and are sold everywhere (supermarket, post-office, gas-station, …). Then they are valid for up to 17 months (January to May next year).
The funny point is that on my last year trip to the Gambia, the smallest country in Africa, when we rented a bike, one of them had a swiss insurance stamp of 95. Would you say a swiss guy cycled there? Some family transported in the boot on their holidays? Or that some other european tourist is precisely now riding my stolen bike with the 05 stamp in some African country?