A drone test turns into routine

The St Gallen cantonal police presented their drone speed checks to the media on Friday, 16 October, on the Hulftegg pass road in the Toggenburg. The canton has used drones in road traffic since the start of 2026, and police describe the test phase as successful, so monitoring will continue within limited times and places. St Gallen is the second canton after Thurgau to bring drones into speed enforcement. Deployments target road sections where police findings point to massive speeding, street racing or dangerous driving, and reports from the public can also trigger them.

How the drones measure speed

Drones film traffic from the air and monitor a stretch of road for several hours, recording targeted footage rather than everything in view. Once a drone lands, the images are downloaded to a computer and analysed. Speed is worked out from the time a vehicle needs to cover a set distance, which lets police judge average speed and driving behaviour over a longer section. If the calculation shows a speeding offence, the driver is reported to the justice system, as with radar.

Philipp Sennhauser, head of the cantonal traffic police, said the focus is on drivers well beyond the limit.

“It is about those who are driving massively too fast.”

He also said that people who speed knowingly or organise races first drive the route to check whether police are present, and that a drone can watch them more discreetly.

Six checks, few offences

Six drone checks have been carried out in 2026, five on the Stoss pass road and one near Mühlrüti on the Hulftegg. The Stoss checks produced two speeding offences, while the Mühlrüti check produced none. Police also reported five road users for unauthorised technical changes to their vehicles. Police call the outcome positive and say drones will stay in use.

Speeding offences2

Reports for unauthorised vehicle changes5

Speeding offences

2

Reports for unauthorised vehicle changes

5

Data from the article text

Police also say drones have been used since 2020 for searching for missing people, identifying suspects and monitoring large events. Watson reports that the drone speed measurement was first tested in 2025, before the official deployment began at the start of 2026.

Legal doubts

Legal experts question whether drones can be used this way. Regina Kiener, a police-law expert at the University of Zurich, points to the protection of privacy.

“Nobody wants to protect speeders, but such checks must also comply with the rule-of-law principles.”

Patrice Martin Zumsteg, a police-law expert at the ZHAW, says the canton relies on very general provisions and that specific legal bases are needed in both the police act and the criminal procedure code. The criminal procedure code allows unlawfully obtained evidence to be used in cases of serious crime. The police's own media documents cite provisions from four different laws.

Other cantons

St Gallen's legal reasoning rests on a 2024 ruling by the Thurgau higher court, which rejected a motorcyclist's appeal. The motorcyclist had been filmed by a Thurgau police drone at more than 200 instead of the permitted 80 kilometres per hour. Thurgau police have used a drone occasionally since 2020 to catch speeders. An SRF survey of all 26 cantonal police found that Thurgau is the only other canton using drones for speed checks, while the others have declined. Some forces said they are watching developments, and the Zurich cantonal police wrote that the legal basis for such checks is missing.