Why do poles drink & drive?

I think that there is culture difference in drinking % betwen Poland and other countries.

I dont think we have more alkoholics than other coutries, but our alkokolics drink "out side", they go and sit in park and drink all day p i s s on the tree and they dont care about anything , they do the same in Poland they do the same in foregin countries. Stats show that we are rather at the bottom of alkohol ligue ;) but this small group of people who prefere to drink "out side" work very hard on our reputation ...

i think your stats are wrong.. poles drink like fish.. maybe they lie when asked the Q for a poll...

find other stats

bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/images/CIN144.gif

another stats

and maybe your head is full of stereotypes ...

i really could care less but thanks lukasz. maybe it's the ones that drink more then others.. i dunno

Alkoholics are alcoholiks, Polish drink in parks Englsh (gues) drink and cry at home ... it is long story

but I think we drink different way, I will take myself as an example ;)

I dont drink like Italians everyday wine to dinner, or like Germans or English Beer to diner.

But some times when I go with friends to drink alcohol I can drink about 0,5 - 0,7 L of vodka during night. And it can look like I drink like the fish, but I dont drink this way every weekend ... ;)))

Hi lukasz
this is interesting. would you say that your drinking habit is represenative of the polish drinking culture in the uk?

Nope our drunks drink on the street too - so I guess England and Poland have something else in common :)))

I think the reason they DD has been made clear - its lack of respect for English law - pure and simple - same reason as speeding - in Greater Manchester circa. 10,000 cars with foreign reg plates were caught speeding but because they are not registered with the DVLA they cant fine them or give them points!!!! - but this is going to change - so hopefully if people have the same pressure as in their own country then they might think twice about breaking the law!


Please let me clear this up - your average English person does not drink beer or anything alcoholic for that matter with dinner - your average English person will drink at weekend when they are not working!

this is not good for your liver, or your body overall, alo you are reduicng the capacity of yourmind. in th elong run this will back fire.. act now dont delay

I just wanted to notice that my drining habit can be representative for most of Poles, we dont drink alcohol everyday or every weekend but when we drink ... ;-)

all in all in alcohol ligue we are bottom - mid table ;)

As to UK I live in Poland I have been to London but as a turist so I dont know ...


I think that I will delay ;) thank you for advice :)

As to behavior of people in forigin countries, I have noticed that English people in London behave more cultural than English people in Krakow ...

So maybe it is the same factor.

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quote=laura scanlon] disproportionate number of polish people are on the drink drive rehabilitation programme [/quote]

Drinking and driving is a crime committed by very selfish and irresponsible people who have given very little regard to those the may around them and their property.If there is a higher than normal incidence of this type of behaviour in any population that means........

look at 'polish drivers again', on this site.Many people are very proud of what you will see.Also try' polish drivers' on' you tube '

Someone dies on Polish roads every 90 minutes.

In 2004, more people died in road accidents per capita in Poland, than in any other member country of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Poles have a three-times higher chance of being killed in a road accident than Swedes for example.

Drink driving is one of the main safety problems on Polish roads.

In 2005, 14% of all road accidents involved someone who had been drinking. The offenders are overwhelmingly men, particularly those under 31 years of age.

Overall the problem is slowly getting better, but among young men, it's actually getting worse.

In 2005, the number of drunk drivers among 19-31 year olds increased by 11%.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6920720.stm

well in sweden they kill more people in the name of frredom - abortion!
the situation in poland isnt that bad.. maybe you should look at the real astory and get some polish statistics

yet another pole unable to accpet reality


maybe you should face reality and do something about it...

you think you ar so special creating pessimism in the community,, the way forward is not by pointing the finger, whats your solution then?

yes there is a problem but if you read the statistics portugese are also very bad

Your lot may not be the worst but they are very bad.I've probably driven in Pl as much as you, if not more-It was my job

What I witnessed there was a complete and total disregard for everything and everybody.It cost me a fortune in wing mirrors because they wont drive in their own lane

and I came close to death on a few occasions too.But hey.....its not that bad

Wake up and smell the coffee, something needs to be done and it needs doing now

Oh and by the way,ask someone from Sochaczew if its not that bad.Before they got the bypass,which they had to block the road for,they had a terrifying existence.

Well done Sochaczew-I admire you for getting something put right

just tellin it how it is - how many people do you know who have been killed on polish roads...?


learning to drive properly would be a start


so that obviously makes everything all right then

of course not my dear brother... but i must say that the police are very strict in poland and people are becoming more aware of this... lots of good work is being carried out.. thansk to the goverment in place

jareck.. why are you randomly attacking different nationalities... you mention Swedish people having abortions.. wtf has that got to do with drink driving??? and who cares what Portuguese people drive like. Lets face it, there are reckless drivers all over the world, I dont think the Polish are are more likely to drink and drive than the English, but maybe they do it in other countries more where the laws arent as strict as in Poland?

.Shelley, I would like to say that I, as a British person.. do enjoy a drink with dinner, but since I dont drive thats not a problem...and at least I know what my bf is doing now when he says he's going for a walk in the park.

try driving in egypt or india.

Hi laura,i gave you the wrong link.Look at polish drinvg techniques in the living in poland section of this site.There some othe good stuff in there too.Also put driving in poland in your search engine and words of that effect

I,don,t know much about the statistics , but can only talk about my experiance...In the UK if i went anywhere by car or bike , i would not drink any alchohol , and if offered any i would simply say i am driving...None of my friends had a problem with this , and i was never pushed to have just a little one....In Poland however most of the people i know think nothing of driving after drinking , and can,t seem to understand why i am reluctant to drink when i am driving...I am sure that there are people i know in the UK who drink and drive too , but its not looked upon as normal , and people would be reluctant to admit they drank and drove...In the small vilages around where i live in Poland there are few Police , so little risk of getting caught , whereas in the UK the risk of getting caught is much higher...In the UK its easy enough to get a taxi if you are going out for a drink , in the rural area,s of Poland this is not the case...There are not so many taxi,s about , and people in my area don,t have the money to spend on such luxuries anyway....Put all this together with the fact that a lot of my friends here are reluctant to wear seat belts , and add in the many roadside trees in Poland , and its not hard to see why the death rate is high in Poland...Last christmas i saw two people die as a result of drink driving , and thats a lot considering there is not so much traffic in this region...The christmas before my good friends father died when he swerved to avoid a drunk in the road...The car rolled over and he was thrown through the sunroof , he wasn,t wearing a seatbelt....I don,t watch Polish telivision , so i don,t know if they have anti drink drive adverts on tv , but in the UK we were constantly bombarded with drink drive warnings , and it became socially unaceptable to drink and drive....I think in Poland its still seen as ok among many people especially the young , and its going to take a lot of effort to change it....In the meantime i just hope all my Polish friends are still around next year , and don,t die as a result of drinking , or someone elses drinking.....

as to accidents on Polish roads ... have you seen Polish roads :))) it is the aswer :)

A tiny piece of anecdotal evidence (maybe it's not evidence - merely an observation).
On holiday in Poland not so many moons ago, the driver who took us there didn't drink and drive.
The youngsters I went to the pub with also didn't drink and drive.
Their alcohol consumption seemed quite sensible to my beery English eyes.

I did, however, see too many bunches of flowers by the sides of roads - roads that I didn't feel at my safest on.

please that has absolutely 0 to do with DD. get over it.

I'm glad you are working on this Laura - it sounds like a great initative.

I think wildrover has hit the nail on the head - drunk driving does not carry the same social stigma here in Poland as it does in the UK. People seem to be more concerned with being fined or losing their licenses (now that it's becoming more difficult to bribe the police) than causing a death. And in the countryside, your chances of being caught are pretty small to start with. If the people you are working with come from rural areas, they might simply be used to getting away with it.

Also, I've lost count of the number of times that my Polish friends tell stories of the foreign guest who got blind drunk at a wedding because he/she 'didn't know how to drink'. It's not unusual to drink 0.5l or more of vodka at one long sitting but it's usually with a meal (or 3 if it's a wedding) or some food to soak it up.

as to D&D it isnt acceptable thing in Poland if I sat in car being drunk members of my family would call the Police ... just it is much better to lost driving licence than kill sb and sit about 10 years in prison ... and I m 100% sure they woud try to stop me and next called the police ...

another small anecdotal observation

i went to a polish wedding this summer - the wedding driver, employed to ferry guests backwards and forwards, was off his face

whether drink is involved or not, the bottomline is that poland is fully of extremely bad drivers.... and endless bunches of flowers at the side of roads

Drove from Krakow to the southeast region and around about last yearand didn't feel nervey at all. I found the driving in general pretty good, the hardest parts being to try and get into the cities and getting out again. Pretty much the same as any English city, it seems worse when you'r strange to the area.

Doing it again end of the month, got a hire car for two week doing west to east and back again. Got my St. Christopher to dangle off the mirror. :o)

In defence of Polish drivers i have to say that i don,t find them to be bad drivers , quite the opposite...As a motorcycle rider i have to say that so far i havent had any scarey near misses from looney car drivers as i did back in the UK...I think the high death rate in Poland is due to several factors...First the narrow roads , with trees close to the road , second , the Polish reluctance to wear a seat belt , and yes the fact that drinking and driving does seem to be more acceptable here...I don,t think the Polish drivers are worse than English drivers , but when they do have an accident they are more likely to die....Drive carefully folks...I like meeting Polish people , but i would rather it wasn,t head on in an accident....

Not so. Most deaths on Polish roads are in fact pedestrians. 75%. That's why we have new roads around villages and new and better crossing points.

Also, I don't see how you can blame a tree at the side of the road for causing an accident.