Driving in Poland, Zebra crossings in stupid places?

What is the idea of putting zebra crossings on road junctions? I find this truly idiotic as when trying to pull out of a junction into a gap in the traffic you have to negotiate your way past pedestrians who have all the time in the world. Also when turning into junctions which are blind most of the time there is the risk someone will be crossing the road and cause some idiot in a skoda with no brakes and bald tyres to drive into the back of you as you have to stop whilst they cross. Seems a stupid idea IMHO and really annoys me.

*rant over*

It is a diabolical scheme by the goverment to ensure that there will always be enough victims to keep ambulances, car repair shops, lawyers and insurance agents busy...

yes. there are a lot of traffic issues that seem to defy logic in poland. how many people died on the road this last weekend?

I understand now it has all become abundantly clear...

That's not as annoying as the crazy nuts who insist on overtaking a 200m long line of cars and lorries despite the incoming traffic in the opposite direction.

I drove from Warsaw to Olsztyn (and back) over the weekend and it was total mayhem on those bumpy congested roads. Mind u, it was even worse on the road to Bialystock with all those Lithuanian lorries.

Also, they obviously do not have enough motorways, but the bits they do have, tend to have traffic lights junctions at some point !! So imagine u r cruising at a 150+km/h and then u have to break swiftly to avoid hitting a queue of cars that just stopped at the traffic lights, on the motorway.

PJ

Its great fun! I swear without ABS i would be dead by now, Also the daylight running lights legislation makes it difficult to see who's braking or not during the day.

fantastic point. id like to see stats on road deaths before and after the legislation

i dont have abs and have had some very close misses

do you have roundabouts in Poland, or are you more American with junctions everywhere?

We have these roundabouts on our motorways - its like Russian roulette on speed.

roundabouts are appearing more in germany too..

I read that roundabouts don't work in Germany. The rule is that you yeild to the driver on your left....and there is always someone to the left and Germans don't break the rules, so they sit there waiting for someone else to go.......

(I'm just kidding!) :)

lol good one :-)

Poland seems to have loads of road junctions with traffic lights and a new type of road covering which stops any car getting traction to pull away or stop, Its an ingenious invention by the tyre producers I reckon. Roundabouts are great, even more fun in the wet.

Same thing in England where u yield to the driver on your right. More generally, whoever happens to be on the roundabout has got priority over the ones trying to get in.

Now why do u think the same rule works in England and wouldn't work in Germany?

Compared to England or Poland, Germany has fewer roundabouts and most are small ones on small roads where traffic lights wouldn't have made much sense.

The kind of roundabout monstruosity at the junction of Marszałkowska and Jerozolimskie in Warsaw, or the infamous one in Elephant and castle London for that matter, isn't the sort of thing u'd normally see in western Germany.

PJ

I am glad to see that the roundabout rules are the same except for the obvious giving way to the vehicles coming from the left/right. Rules are fine, but then culture comes in, and in Ireland its simply "he who dares wins".

Sorry I can imagine the Germans sitting there, but its not as bad as the Americans who are completely cluless and either sit there doing nothing, go the wrong way or cause mayhem by lane hopping, or worse drive around with thier eyes shut. -seriously.

what i didnt understand in poland is crazy amounts of zebra crossings, also when i was in Poznan (although im sure it the same in other places, i just didnt notice!) when you have a crossing on a busy road, the traffic is allowd to filter right even though the crossing is green!, which was verryyyy confussing!!!, i think im to scared to drive in poland!

Try India, Egypt, or Russia ..

PJ

well yes, but im not moving to them countrys!

Not quite the same, in Poland you don't signal going into a roundabout, only just before your exit. So if you're turning left (3rd exit) you don't signal left, enter the roundabout with no signal and signal right just before your exit.

May I correct you.That is not true - it is the way that Poles have been taught by clowns and is not the "way it is done."

Any good (polite) driver signals his or her intentions at a roundabout, not on leaving the roundabout. This is not a communist country any more - people travel and have learnt to flash their lights to let people in etc.

No more should anyone listen to police advice in Poland on how to drive - these bozos are double dim and make the problem worse - the secret is to learn from the British on how to drive properly.

My the British I mean people who have had some experience of driving in a driver culture like Britains' - I wasn't suggesting that the British are better at driving than Poles per se.

Errr, no. When you go into a roundabout there's technically only one way to go at first (left), therefore there's no need to signal. Everybody knows that a car reaching a roundabout is going to have to enter it. You signal your intention to exit the roundabout so that the cars a) behind you, b) on the next lane, and especially c) waiting to enter the roundabout can react accordingly.

Mini roundabouts you signal before entering, Large ones you signal before you exit don't you?


You don't need to suggest that brits are better at driving as its blatantly obvious when driving in Poland that 90% of the people on the roads have no idea what they are doing, Only the other day I saw a large lancia saloon car drive into the central reservation for no apparent reason whatsoever. The second there is a light sprinkling of rain the poles are all falling off the road or driving into each other. I do around 1000 kms a week and the general quality of driving beggars belief, I watched some bloke try 4 times to fit his corsa in a fairly large parking space before giving up, And what is it with drivers not being able to pull away without spinning the wheels? I drive on the same roads, pull away faster and never spin the wheels?

Lane discipline is another, when you are not overtaking a vehicle you pull into the inside lane you don't drive your asthmatic crock of shite at half the speed limit in the overtaking lane for no reason causing people to undertake you.

In Britain 99% of the drivers on the roads will do pretty much what you expect them to, In Poland its quite the reverse.

This is by no means a dig at Polish people as I love the country and have some great friends here but the standard of driving on Polish roads is horrific.

From my experience of a local (busy) roundabout, and the way people drive round it, it seems like they're as surprised as me when they leave ...

And don't we just *love* the strange 'cobbled' areas which look decorative but are usually considered as "extra road if you run out of tarmac bits" - at least they let the locals drive straight across the Chwaszczyno one without even a twitch to the steering wheel.

How is this possible?



Taken the other morning between Poznan and Bydgoscz, (no one was hurt)

The good news is that somebody in the government seems to have noticed this problem. The major junctions in Warsaw are slowly having their traffic lights replaced with different systems which, for example, only allow cars to turn right with the lights and don't let pedestrians cross the street those cars will be turning into at that time.

Now all they need to do is teach Polish drivers that if you drive into a junction when it is not possible for you to drive off it, when the lights change you block the junction!

could you also sort out teaching them that red light means stop and green light means put car in gear and drive... preferably before it changes to red again...?

That would be a really good idea, It might also be wise to teach them that the brake and accelerators are not digital ie on or off.