{"id":564,"date":"2009-06-15T18:13:32","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T22:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=564"},"modified":"2009-06-15T18:13:32","modified_gmt":"2009-06-15T22:13:32","slug":"deadly-weekend-on-the-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/deadly-weekend-on-the-roads\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadly Weekend on the Roads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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 <strong>Gda\u0144sk<\/strong> and while it can be scary, it\u2019s certainly not suicidal.<\/p>\n<p>Last weekend, however, has totally changed my perspective. It was a long weekend. An extra long weekend, even. There was <strong>Bo\u017ce Cia\u0142o<\/strong> (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\u2019s dog were out on the roads. Drunk.<\/p>\n<p>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 <strong>W\u0142oc\u0142awek<\/strong> and <strong>\u0141\u00f3d\u017a<\/strong>, for example.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s is 12.80. This is higher than Italy, Spain and Greece, which are famous for their infamous drivers. Luckily, Poland wasn\u2019t the worst, that sad record went to Hungary, which is the most deadly European country for those on the roads.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2009\/06\/black-spot-copy.jpg\" aria-label=\"Black Spot Copy\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-565\"  alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"210\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2009\/06\/black-spot-copy.jpg\"><\/a>I also saw the results of such behavior. And trust me, it wasn\u2019t pretty. The many \u201c<strong>czarny punkt<\/strong>\u201d signs (accident blackspot), placed literally every few miles on our roads, prove that I am not exaggerating.<br \/>\nPoles 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.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s words:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>wypadek<\/strong> (<em>masc., pl.:<\/em> <strong>wypadki<\/strong>) \u2013 accident<\/li>\n<li><strong>wypadek samochodowy<\/strong> \u2013 car accident<\/li>\n<li><strong>samoch\u00f3d<\/strong> (<em>masc., pl.:<\/em> <strong>samochody<\/strong>) \u2013 car<\/li>\n<li><strong>pijany<\/strong> (<em>adj., fem.:<\/em> <strong>pijana<\/strong>; <em>neuter:<\/em> <strong>pijane<\/strong>; <em>plural personal masculine:<\/em> <strong>pijani<\/strong>, <em>plural other:<\/em> <strong>pijane<\/strong>) \u2013 drunk <em>(as in \u201cdriver\u201d)<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>kierowca<\/strong> (<em>masc., pl:<\/em> <strong>kierowcy<\/strong>) \u2013 driver<\/li>\n<li><strong>czarny punkt<\/strong> \u2013 accident blackspot, the number on the left tells you how many people died there, on the right \u2013 people injured.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 Gda\u0144sk and while it can be scary, it\u2019s certainly not suicidal. Last weekend, however, has totally changed&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/deadly-weekend-on-the-roads\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[7349,7382,7561,3376],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-vocabulary","tag-car-accidents","tag-drunk-driving","tag-road-fatalities","tag-road-safety"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}