Facts
The appellant X. was convicted by the District Court of Meilen on March 5, 2010 for serious (overtaking maneuver with insufficient visibility and excessive speed) and simple (exceeding the permitted speed limit) violations of traffic regulations, and sentenced to a suspended fine. Both X. and the Public Prosecutor's Office appealed against this judgment. On November 3, 2010, the High Court of the Canton of Zurich upheld the first-instance convictions and also found X. guilty of the simple traffic violation of following too closely.Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court dismissed X.'s appeal. It concluded that the factual findings of the lower courts were not arbitrary. Even though in dense urban traffic the "two-second" or "half speedometer" rule cannot be strictly applied, in the present case a distance of at least one second should have been maintained, which at a speed of 50 km/h corresponds to approximately 14 meters. Even if one were to assume a distance of 10 meters in…