Much can be said about Polish roads and Polish drivers and none of good, unfortunately. Until last weekend I had thought those were nasty exaggerations, at least for the most part. I drive from time to time in Gdańsk and while it can be scary, it’s certainly not suicidal.
Last weekend, however, has totally changed my perspective. It was a long weekend. An extra long weekend, even. There was Boże Ciało (Corpus Christi) on Thursday, most people took the Friday off too, and then normal Saturday and Sunday. And seemingly everybody, their mother and their neighbor’s dog were out on the roads. Drunk.
Long weekends are deadly on the roads the world over, but this one in Poland was sheer hell. The final toll was 65 people dead and over 600 car accidents. Most of them caused by drunk driving. And speeding. And behaving as if the road existed in virtual reality and not somewhere between Włocławek and Łódź, for example.
Road traffic safety is measured in accident deaths per passenger-kilometer, and while the European average is 4.3 fatalities (as calculated by Allianz), Poland’s is 12.80. This is higher than Italy, Spain and Greece, which are famous for their infamous drivers. Luckily, Poland wasn’t the worst, that sad record went to Hungary, which is the most deadly European country for those on the roads.
I don’t understand why most Poles act the way they do when behind the wheel. Last weekend I saw time and time again people who thought it was perfectly OK to drive a car after drinking two beers. Or three beers. Or more. I saw time and time again people who thought it was perfectly OK to drive 120 km/h in a 70 km/h zone. Who thought that passing on a narrow two-lane country road (you can’t call it a highway) when massive tractor-trailers rumbled from the opposite direction (also doing 120 km/h in a 70 km/h zone) was a perfectly reasonable option.
I also saw the results of such behavior. And trust me, it wasn’t pretty. The many “czarny punkt” signs (accident blackspot), placed literally every few miles on our roads, prove that I am not exaggerating.
Poles are known as terrible drivers in Ireland and in the UK, and I am beginning to realize why. After this weekend, I am cured of any and all future roads trips across the country.
Today’s words:
- wypadek (masc., pl.: wypadki) – accident
- wypadek samochodowy – car accident
- samochód (masc., pl.: samochody) – car
- pijany (adj., fem.: pijana; neuter: pijane; plural personal masculine: pijani, plural other: pijane) – drunk (as in “driver”)
- kierowca (masc., pl: kierowcy) – driver
- czarny punkt – accident blackspot, the number on the left tells you how many people died there, on the right – people injured.
Comments:
michael farris:
According to the work of the Dutch sociologist Geert Hostede, Poland is a country with ‘high uncertainty avoidance’ (by way of contrast Sweden, UK and Ireland are all low uncertainty avoidance).
Fast and reckless driving is a characteristic of uncertainty avoidance (as are high levels of alcohol consumption, negative attitudes toward teenagers and a desire for their to be many rules and regulations …. which are then ignored).
On the good side, high uncertainty avoidance countries tend to have lower levels of mental illness and cope with real disaster pretty well.
Getting back to driving, Polish drivers are the main reason I never want to drive a car in Poland and prefer public transport (buses and trams will usually win an argument with a car).
Mary:
I was in Poland on the weekend and i saw the aftermath of a particularly
nasty accident in Warsaw.
They didn’t even close the road and it was covered in metal and rubbish
(the car had gone accross both 3 lane carriage ways before it stopped) and other
cars were being caught up as a result.
I am always scared when in a car in Poland! the Poles seem to think it’s normal!