JUNE 6, 2007

Hold your horsepower

The Swiss have a complicated form of government and so reports that motor racing can now go ahead in the country are a little premature. It is true that the Nationalrat, the Lower House of the Swiss Parliament, has voted in favour of a revised version of the Swiss Road Traffic Act to allow for circuit racing, but there is still a long way to go before we see any races.

The question now has to go before the Bundesrat, the Upper House of Parliament. That will not happen before September at the earliest and it might not even happen before Christmas. A couple of years ago a similar law was proposed and accepted by the Nationalrat only to be rejected by the Bundesrat.

Even if the Bundesrat does agree to the change in the law, there is then a 100-day period in which there can be a call for a referendum on the subject if any person opposed to the new law manages to collect 50,000 signatures in the time available.