"Be careful when walking through town. The cars are silent, and if you are in their way, they will run you over." KR, the headmaster at Swiss Semester, told us on the ride to Zermatt. When I first saw a Zermatt car, I thought, "He must have accidentally used the word car, because this looks nothing like one!" The cars in Zermatt are about half the size of the smallest car in the US. Besides Smart Cars. Zermatt cars are about two thirds the size of a Smart Car. Zermatt cars, or taxi's, fit eight, possibly ten, people. That sounds like a lot, but there are two people in the front, then two rows of seats facing each other in the back, and comfortably should only fit two people per row.
I have never seen a real car around town. The closet thing to what someone who's never been to Zermatt calls a car is a truck. The trucks seem huge, with the flat front, shiny white surface, and being the biggest thing in Zermatt. However, they are only about one third of a truck in America.
The cars are called taxi's because. truly, that's all they are. Only businesses have taxi's. Most people in Zermatt ride a bike or a scooter, or walk. The taxi's are for hotels, bars, some shops (only about two, though), and for transporting things like crates or food, animals (I've seriously seen a goat riding on the back of a flat-bed taxi once).
When KR said that the taxi's don't move out of the way, he wasn't kidding. The drivers are all very good drivers, but dangerous and impatient. The swerve a lot just for one person, the drive very fast down main street, and they do whatever they can to avoid stopping or slowing down. The Zermatt cars are silent, except for a little buzzing. My ears trained themselves to pick out the noise, even when it's very far away.
I actually like the transportation system through town in Zermatt a lot better than anywhere in America. Unless I stay at home all day, which is very, very rare, I get exercise just by walking though town. The taxi's are also run by electricity, so they don't use gas. The taxi's give off way less pollution than cars running on gasoline, and make it better for the Earth.
In America, cars are a representation of freedom. Kids grow up dreaming about their first car. Sixteen-year-olds count down the days until they get their drivers license. In Zermatt, cars are just something to dodge while walking through town, or exclusively used for business. For tourists, taxi's are targets for the pictures. Locals, or people used to the exercise, could care less if the cars were there. It would have no impact personally on their lives, unless their job has to use a car.
The businesses who own the cars decorate them how they want. The decorating includes seat covers, paint on the outside, objects on outside (I've seen deer antlers on the top of a car.) Some businesses are very creative with how they decorate it, while others just paint their name on the exterior and leave the rest plain.
