4 ms·

Having lived with young kids in Switzerland, I agree, but one also has to add that there are very few places your kids won't be safe in Switzerland. Most places

by bwanab 2y ago

Having lived with young kids in Switzerland, I agree, but one also has to add that there are very few places your kids won't be safe in Switzerland. Most places you could leave your bike unlocked and have a reasonable expectation it would still be there when you came for it.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Is crime low because everyone is so well off it’s pointless to steal a bike? Or more social norms and culture like Japan?
- kimi 2y ago
  It's because the little crime there is will be taken very seriously. Police will investigate your missing bike. And yes, culture and social expectations.
  - huhtenberg 2y ago
    > Police will investigate your missing bike. They most certainly will not. They won't generally investigate property-related theft and crimes, including non-violent home break-ins. They just issue an incident report for your insurance and that's the end of it.
  - rootsandstones 2y ago
    That‘s a good one. They write down your frame number and tell you they get back to you. Then you never hear from them again.
  - dgellow 2y ago
    They definitely won’t investigate your missing bike unless it is a really valuable one. If you would have any experience living in the country you would know that’s absolutely not true. We also don’t have a single police, it’s handled at the canton level and they can be drastically different.
    - kimi 2y ago
      Well, it depends of course, but in general police presence is way more attentive to "smaller" issues than in neighboring countries. As for experience, I have been living in CH for almost 20 years now.
- barrkel 2y ago
  Crime seems sufficiently low that police have bandwidth to deal with more petty crimes. However I would not expect an unlocked bicycle to be safe, there is still quite a bit of bike theft. But I would expect a simple lock to be enough, most of the time. Similarly with motorbikes: steering lock seems to be enough, judging by the lack of extra security I see on other bikes.
- atemerev 2y ago
  Switzerland is very expensive. A stolen bike won’t bring you much money by local standards (and the crime will be investigated by police).
  - dilyevsky 2y ago
    I spent some time in Zurich and at this point it's not measurably more expensive than SF and parts of south bay yet here we are
  - piva00 2y ago
    Not that much more than NYC or SF to be honest, I've traveled to all three in the past year and spent more money in NYC than I did in Geneva for the same amount of time (around 4 days in each).
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    >and the crime will be investigated by police nope.
    - atemerev 2y ago
      Well, I reported my stolen scooter to the police. They haven’t found it, but the case is open! And they helped me in other cases.
- PKop 2y ago
  Low crime and being well off, along with good social norms and culture, likely all go together and come as a collection of traits of certain groups of people.
- rootsandstones 2y ago
  Its just not true. Bikes get stolen a lot even when they are locked. But There is not a lot of violent crime in Switzerland, so you can walk around everywhere without any worries.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  Adults bikes get stolen, a lot. But kids bike almost never because there is no money to be made selling kids bikes.[1] [1] I mean the regular department store kids bike, not some kids specific high end mountain bike some people would buy for their kids.
- dgellow 2y ago
  Not everyone is well off in Switzerland, the country is relatively rich and lots of rich people moved there but the wealth isn’t distributed equally among the population. It’s not necessarily as visible as other countries due to the low density. The vast majority of people couldn’t afford to live in Zurich or Geneva.
- derelicta 2y ago
  > Is crime low because everyone is so well off Apparently it's a controversial statement for some folks, but yes, having good material conditions basically makes it stupid to commit crimes. Why would you risk your life or your freedom for some quick bucks when you can enjoy social comfort and 5 weeks of guaranteed vacations per year? You can thank trade unions for that lifestyle. They fought very hard until very recently. Nowadays it's getting tougher for them and for all of us for sure...
alistairSH 2y ago
Aside from getting run over by a car, are there that many places a kid isn’t safe in the US? Yes, there are rough neighborhoods - I’m asking about normal suburbs and white collar neighborhoods? The school drop off line is absurd in my neighborhood. The school complex (K-12) is on a shared property. It’s less than a mile from my house. No road crossings at all to get there. Yet the kids bused or driven.
- throwway120385 2y ago
  Speaking from personal experience I would do that more for the local busybodies than out of any real fear for my child's safety. There are a ton of older people in our area who never had kids but feel like they can police how you parent.
  - alamortsubite 2y ago
    Is it more disturbing to sacrifice a child's development by isolating them 1) due to irrational fears, or 2) merely to satisfy the local busybodies?
    - throwway120385 2y ago
      Well when the busybodies spread rumors about you you end up isolated either way.
- maxsilver 2y ago
  > , are there that many places a kid isn’t safe in the US? It depends on what you mean by "safe". In most of US "normal suburbs", your kid isn't likely to get like, murdered. But if they leave a bike unlocked and unattended for a few hours (the way the parent poster describes Switzerland), then yeah, it's going to vanish, even in many "nice" US neighborhoods.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    The "unlocked kids bike" is a pretty good way of testing a neighborhood over time.
typeofhuman 2y ago
Switzerland is seeing a huge increase in violent crime. 16.6% between 2021 and 2022. Serious bodily harm and rape were the crimes that saw the biggest rises, increasing by 17% and 14.5%, respectively.[0] - [0]: https://www.iamexpat.ch/expat-info/swiss-expat-news/most-violent-swiss-city-named-after-burglary-rates-rise-first-time-decade https://www.iamexpat.ch/expat-info/swiss-expat-news/most-vio...
- HatchedLake721 2y ago
  > Switzerland is seeing a huge increase in violent crime. 16.6% between 2021 and 2022. 2020-2023 data should be mostly ignored, especially by news websites trying to generate clickbait content. It's like when UK politicians gloated how they reduced shoplifting/burglary rates. Yes, it was lockdown with shops closed and people sitting at home, of course rates went down. Same thing here, there's no point drawing conclusion in data between 2021 (lockdowns) and 2022. > The FSO noted [...] crime rates have shot back up to 2019 levels.
- PKop 2y ago
  It's because immigration is increasing, and more non-Swiss are in the country.
  - dgellow 2y ago
    HN isn’t the place for xenophobic, racists comments like this one
    - typeofhuman 2y ago
      But the increase is attributable largely to the recent immigrant population. Some cultures think it's perfectly fine to assault and rape women. Those cultures are bad and good cultures are suffering the consequences by inviting them in.
    - PKop 2y ago
      I'll note you didn't say "that's not true" because you know it is. You should be ashamed of yourself for wanting to oppose discourse that speaks truth, in service to upholding some religious incantation denouncing those that discuss truth as "racist". Don't you care whatsoever about the quality of life degradation for people living in these countries that are suffering with this problem? No, you care more about words and labels.

by bwanab 2y ago

toomuchtodo 2y ago

Is crime low because everyone is so well off it’s pointless to steal a bike? Or more social norms and culture like Japan?

kimi 2y ago
It's because the little crime there is will be taken very seriously. Police will investigate your missing bike. And yes, culture and social expectations.
- huhtenberg 2y ago
  > Police will investigate your missing bike. They most certainly will not. They won't generally investigate property-related theft and crimes, including non-violent home break-ins. They just issue an incident report for your insurance and that's the end of it.
- rootsandstones 2y ago
  That‘s a good one. They write down your frame number and tell you they get back to you. Then you never hear from them again.
- dgellow 2y ago
  They definitely won’t investigate your missing bike unless it is a really valuable one. If you would have any experience living in the country you would know that’s absolutely not true. We also don’t have a single police, it’s handled at the canton level and they can be drastically different.
  - kimi 2y ago
    Well, it depends of course, but in general police presence is way more attentive to "smaller" issues than in neighboring countries. As for experience, I have been living in CH for almost 20 years now.
barrkel 2y ago
Crime seems sufficiently low that police have bandwidth to deal with more petty crimes. However I would not expect an unlocked bicycle to be safe, there is still quite a bit of bike theft. But I would expect a simple lock to be enough, most of the time. Similarly with motorbikes: steering lock seems to be enough, judging by the lack of extra security I see on other bikes.
atemerev 2y ago
Switzerland is very expensive. A stolen bike won’t bring you much money by local standards (and the crime will be investigated by police).
- dilyevsky 2y ago
  I spent some time in Zurich and at this point it's not measurably more expensive than SF and parts of south bay yet here we are
- piva00 2y ago
  Not that much more than NYC or SF to be honest, I've traveled to all three in the past year and spent more money in NYC than I did in Geneva for the same amount of time (around 4 days in each).
- prmoustache 2y ago
  >and the crime will be investigated by police nope.
  - atemerev 2y ago
    Well, I reported my stolen scooter to the police. They haven’t found it, but the case is open! And they helped me in other cases.
PKop 2y ago
Low crime and being well off, along with good social norms and culture, likely all go together and come as a collection of traits of certain groups of people.
rootsandstones 2y ago
Its just not true. Bikes get stolen a lot even when they are locked. But There is not a lot of violent crime in Switzerland, so you can walk around everywhere without any worries.
prmoustache 2y ago
Adults bikes get stolen, a lot. But kids bike almost never because there is no money to be made selling kids bikes.[1] [1] I mean the regular department store kids bike, not some kids specific high end mountain bike some people would buy for their kids.
dgellow 2y ago
Not everyone is well off in Switzerland, the country is relatively rich and lots of rich people moved there but the wealth isn’t distributed equally among the population. It’s not necessarily as visible as other countries due to the low density. The vast majority of people couldn’t afford to live in Zurich or Geneva.
derelicta 2y ago
> Is crime low because everyone is so well off Apparently it's a controversial statement for some folks, but yes, having good material conditions basically makes it stupid to commit crimes. Why would you risk your life or your freedom for some quick bucks when you can enjoy social comfort and 5 weeks of guaranteed vacations per year? You can thank trade unions for that lifestyle. They fought very hard until very recently. Nowadays it's getting tougher for them and for all of us for sure...

alistairSH 2y ago

Aside from getting run over by a car, are there that many places a kid isn’t safe in the US? Yes, there are rough neighborhoods - I’m asking about normal suburbs and white collar neighborhoods? The school drop off line is absurd in my neighborhood. The school complex (K-12) is on a shared property. It’s less than a mile from my house. No road crossings at all to get there. Yet the kids bused or driven.

throwway120385 2y ago
Speaking from personal experience I would do that more for the local busybodies than out of any real fear for my child's safety. There are a ton of older people in our area who never had kids but feel like they can police how you parent.
- alamortsubite 2y ago
  Is it more disturbing to sacrifice a child's development by isolating them 1) due to irrational fears, or 2) merely to satisfy the local busybodies?
  - throwway120385 2y ago
    Well when the busybodies spread rumors about you you end up isolated either way.
maxsilver 2y ago
> , are there that many places a kid isn’t safe in the US? It depends on what you mean by "safe". In most of US "normal suburbs", your kid isn't likely to get like, murdered. But if they leave a bike unlocked and unattended for a few hours (the way the parent poster describes Switzerland), then yeah, it's going to vanish, even in many "nice" US neighborhoods.
- bombcar 2y ago
  The "unlocked kids bike" is a pretty good way of testing a neighborhood over time.

typeofhuman 2y ago

Switzerland is seeing a huge increase in violent crime. 16.6% between 2021 and 2022. Serious bodily harm and rape were the crimes that saw the biggest rises, increasing by 17% and 14.5%, respectively.[0] - [0]: https://www.iamexpat.ch/expat-info/swiss-expat-news/most-violent-swiss-city-named-after-burglary-rates-rise-first-time-decade https://www.iamexpat.ch/expat-info/swiss-expat-news/most-vio...

HatchedLake721 2y ago
> Switzerland is seeing a huge increase in violent crime. 16.6% between 2021 and 2022. 2020-2023 data should be mostly ignored, especially by news websites trying to generate clickbait content. It's like when UK politicians gloated how they reduced shoplifting/burglary rates. Yes, it was lockdown with shops closed and people sitting at home, of course rates went down. Same thing here, there's no point drawing conclusion in data between 2021 (lockdowns) and 2022. > The FSO noted [...] crime rates have shot back up to 2019 levels.
PKop 2y ago
It's because immigration is increasing, and more non-Swiss are in the country.
- dgellow 2y ago
  HN isn’t the place for xenophobic, racists comments like this one
  - typeofhuman 2y ago
    But the increase is attributable largely to the recent immigrant population. Some cultures think it's perfectly fine to assault and rape women. Those cultures are bad and good cultures are suffering the consequences by inviting them in.
  - PKop 2y ago
    I'll note you didn't say "that's not true" because you know it is. You should be ashamed of yourself for wanting to oppose discourse that speaks truth, in service to upholding some religious incantation denouncing those that discuss truth as "racist". Don't you care whatsoever about the quality of life degradation for people living in these countries that are suffering with this problem? No, you care more about words and labels.