FIVE DIE AS POLE DRIVES WRONG WAY ON UK MOTORWAY

Without fuller knowledge of what actually happened, we should understand that it is complicated. Even though it really shouldn't have happened, stress can take over. I remember when I was young, my mum went down a one-way road the wrong way. She decided to continue on. We met a couple of cars along the way but managed to avoid a crash. It was a quiet road and not a motorway.

That's probably the likeliest scenario. At that time of night he possibly assumed he could fire back down the motorway and avoid other traffic.


None that I've read.

Anyway, this is a sad story regardless of how it was caused. Five people are dead, four from the same family.

The most likely explanation is that he was waiting for the next turnoff and rolled the dice. Unfortunately, he rolled a 1 :(

The police said earlier that the younger people in the back of the Jaguar were not related to the older people in the front of it , and they were unsure as to the connection between them....

I think they have a clearer idea now, I read in this article that they were from the same family. A mother and her children plus maybe an uncle. Sad.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8006893.stm

You are right....A mother , her son and daughter , and an uncle...

Very true. It makes me wonder what research people do when they go to another country if they intend to drive there.

I think that too many people seem to think that a car is a car and a road is just tarmac and that they're both the same everywhere.


Also very true, but the problem is that when anyone suggests that there should be rules to follow before foreigners hit the road in another country or, God forbid, some kind of a test, there's an uproar.

"What about people that just want a couple of weeks holiday?" everybody starts bleating, "should they have to take another driving test ??"

I agree that testing might be a step too far, but something needs to be done to stop stuff like this happening.

The roads are bad enough in the UK and the standards of driving are low enough as it is, without allowing people onto the roads that are used to something totally different.

I heard somebody say that the UK should be held to account as it condones driving on the left-hand side of the road rather than on the right. It was a Pole who told me this.

I used to spend a fair bit of time whizzing about on one of the main routes into London from the ferry ports , and on this road there were quite a few signs warning drivers from Europe to drive on the left , there were more than a few accidents though despite this , often involving heavy lorries......

Speaking for myself , i did do as much research as i could about the country i was planning to drive in , in case there were any strange rules that i need know about , but in the end the only way to know what its like is to drive there...and thats to do it...

Maybe there ought to be some sort of legislation to prevent inexperianced drivers from driving in countries where they drive on the opposite side of the road , as this i am sure is the biggest problem , all the other different stuff you can quickly adapt to....

"Condones" ?

How did he work that one out ? For a start we're not the only country in the whole world that drives on the left.

The guy that is dead caused this accident and, while I would never go as far as to say maybe that was for the best, giving the fact that causing death by dangerous/wreckless driving carries little consequences these days, the family of those in the Jaguar might do.

Blaming a country for having driving rules and regulations that, for whatever reason, this chap didn't follow is the daftest thing I've heard.

We "condone" driving on the left........!!! That's just stupid !!!

Exactly, Japan is an island culture and it's on the left there too. It was a weird thing to say.

It was unsuprising that Sweden's level of road traffic accidents increased when they changed to driving on the right. Is it suprising that things have only ever got worse since? There had been experiments in the past (when things hadn't fully settled down with regards to where the driver should sit) to see whether it was safer for the driver to sit on the inside with a better view of the edge of the road and the kerb or on the outside with a better view of oncoming traffic. It was generally found that the outside is safer, although the middle of the vehicle may actually be even more sensible, as long as there aren't people sat on either side. I think the driver should sit on the roof or right out on the bonnet like a postillion.

To summarise, it is safe passing on either side, as long as the driver has the best view of oncoming traffic and as long as everyone is passing on the same side. The left side is the norm for not just the UK, but also Ireland, southern Africa, southeast Asia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and possibly a few other places.

If you are riding a horse, you may need to draw your sword. Therefore it is best to control the horse with your left hand and protect yourself from the right, so you should pass on the left.

If it is more normal for goods to be carried by more than one horse pulling a cart or carriage, it is much easier to use the right hand to control the horses, as more people are right handed than left.

There were motorway works, this fuckwit of a driver did a u turn at temporary lights and went on the WRONG side of the motorway which was down to one lane, the other passengers didn't have a chance! To those banging on about about us driving on the wrong side of the road, it is not the WRONG side of the road in the UK, Im sure that the 1,000s of Brits that go to live in Spain manage to drive on the CORRECT side of the road.

RIP to all concerend.

Exactly, it's just a different side of the road and people have to adjust to that. It took me a while as a cyclist to get used to it. How on earth was he reading the road? Only he knew what was going through his mind. RIP to the loss of innocent life.

Obviously he wasn't, maybe he thought he'd take his chances with it being early hours.. totally irrisponsible, I remember having a conversation with a Polish guy a while back and he thought it was completely acceptable to drive on the hard shoulder??? WTF! He was stuned when I told him it was illegal to drive on the hard shoulder and he would get in trouble for doing so, his response was "but it's just another lane"....This guy was a GP so he wasn't some stupid kid, the mind boggles!!!

Yeah, the hard shoulder is there for a clear reason. It's odd as the Poles have quite a thorough theory test. How do I know? Well, my fiancee worked on hers for quite a while. They have 4 possible answers and sometimes 3 are correct. If you get 2/3, I think you don't pass the question. They have 20 questions and we have 35 but it's easier for us.

Still tho!! Different country, different emphasis.

[quote=ShelleyS]
thought it was completely acceptable to drive on the hard shoulder??? WTF!

In Poland its expected that you pull onto the hard shoulder in order to let a faster vehicle overtake you on a narrow road where the sign says..no overtaking...

I seriously don't know what the polish driving test teaches people, I have let several of my friends who have just passed drive my cars over the years and people who have passed the test in Poland don't seem to know how to operate a clutch smoothly, how to read the road or judge how fast they should enter a corner etc, In short they are terrible and drive in a similar way to I did in a field at 14 in a battered old cortina. I was recently teaching my younger sister to drive who is a far better driver than anyone I have experienced in Poland with smooth gear changes and an idea of how to judge space, speed etc and the same story echo's true to a lot of people I know when they first pass,

Obviously this guy didn't know what he was doing and made a mistake which proved to be fatal. Maybe a standardised driving test throughout europe is in order where drivers are taught these things to the same standard and maybe the roads in Poland need to be policed better in order to stop the reckless driving which occurs here.

Driving on the other side of the road to which you are accustomed isn't a difficult thing to do at all if people find it difficult maybe a bus pass might be a better option.....

One problem is that the Polish driving test is a bag of balls. It might have changed but when my wife did it, you could only practise with a registered instructor, not with relatives / friends and you had to take the test within a time limit, encouraging people to cram for the test. Some peolpe would pass their test after barely a month of actual driving practice.

A lot of the candidates would try to memorise the potential combinations of the computer based theory test instead of learning the highway code. Ridiculous. Some examiners would fail people but then guarantee a pass the next time round if they did a course at their 'school' first.

The test itself was laughable, rating the ability to complete basic manouvres (reversing into a parking space) higher than awareness of other drivers and being able to drive safely. Add to this the funadamental lack of respect the Pole has for his fellow citizens and it's no wonder the roads here are so dangerous.

The guy in this story was probably drunk too.

Youre also guaranteed a pass if you manage to bribe the examiner dont forget.

The police don,t seem to think that this was a factor in this accident in the UK....

That's because the jews / communists who run the left wing crypto fascist british media are covering the truth up always go light on immigrants and have got it in for the white british working class, apparently

In England it's expected that you leave the hard shoulder clear for emergencies and these idiots should learn the rules of driving in this country before they get on the roads!

The story in the sun gives a schematic about what possibly happened

from thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2385298.ece

I'd guess the driver thought the road was a single 2+1 carriageway and that he'd do a uturn into the single lane 'going the other way'. This is illegal but that never stops anyone in Poland. I don't know why the idiot suddenly thought he was driving on the right - drink definitely played a role.

Yeah, I agree with you completely. However, I also understand the people who angrily call the driver an idiot. It was an idiotic thing to do, most likely fostered by bad and lax driving standards and the unfamiliarity of a new road on the left. Who knows, maybe drink too, but with all the confusion involved at night, drink may not have been necessary to make such an error. The judgment was ridiculous.

He must have known he was on a motorway, since the speed he was travelling was in excess of 70, the cars were BOTH unrecognisable, so the fact he did a U turn and headed on to the other side of the motorway, is not out of confussion but out of stupidity, our motorways, just like your highways are pretty easy to navigate.

Calicoe, look at these cars:

timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6138985.ece

I can see how people get confused in urban situations ie turning into a road and driving on the wrong side etc little lapses in concentration can be responsible for that but going the wrong way down a motorway, autobahnm autostrada, autoroute or whatever you wich to call it is just down to pure stupity, The poor attitude towards driving in Poland could be to blame but never once have I had the urge to do a u turn on a motorway and drive towards oncoming traffic, Could this have been a suicide for some reason as it all seems a bit strange to happen out of error?

I bet that passat will be back in Poland in no time being repaired for use on the road again! It seems no matter how badly damaged something is it will make it back on the road in PL.

Have you looked at the photo of the car? It wont be going anywhere!

Sure as you apparently have no swans left due to the fact that immigrants developed a taste for nice raw swan. Beware you can be next as you are looking eatable.

It sounds as though he wanted to take his own life & decided to take some others with him.