Observation of Polish drivers, by and English anthropologist.

On many roads It's the only way to keep the traffic going, otherwise you would have a thousand cars behind some grandpa doing 60km/h.

I was once (Well my girlfriend was, she was driving) overtaken by an elderly couple in their 80's driving around 100 on a 50-road. In a maluch, barely reaching over the steering wheel. Best polish roadmemory ever.

Most irritating on the roads are the tractors, what's wrong with them? Do they really have to take the damn thing to the local supermarket? Leave it on the field where it belongs...

they wouldnt be so bad if they pulled over at every reasonable opportunity to let the flow of traffic safely pass, ohh no thats far to much of a sensible and kind to thy fellow human being thing to do.

It's the international rule of tractor drivers the world over. He who drives the tractor has the power to pi$$ off every other bugger on the road :)

I think the fuel they put in their tractor costs much less than the fuel they put in their car , due to subsidies....

So if they need to go a short distance what are they going to use... the old Ursus of course...!

In Poland you either drive at 80km/h (this is a speed of lorries) or you jumping over.
Is this really illegal?
I've always thought that illegal is "overtaking as a third" ie when you trying to overtake a vehicle that is already performing manoeuvre of overtaking another car.. lol

BTW - for most Polish drivers, speed limits signs are perceived as a mild suggestion. :)

The way I see it is that a speed limit sign gives you a limit for 65 year old driver, driving a 1.2 litre engine car.

Now, to calculate YOUR speed limit based on the sign, you should substract your age from 65 and add
the result to the speed limit (one kilometre per hour for every year of age difference). Then, based on
your car's engine, you can also add 2 km/h for every 100cc over 1.2 litres. OK - that sounds a little bit
complicated, but really isn't. Let's take an example...

You are 28 years old, driving 1.6 litre car, and you see an "80 km/h" speed limit sign. The limit for you is:

80 + (65-28) = 117 (age bonus)
117 + 4*2 = 125 (engine bonus)

It is OK to go slightly over the limit (let's say 8-10 km/h) so you shouldn't really go faster than 135 km/h

on said road.

How does alchohol affect those figures....is that plus another 10%..?

Actually, no. In the interest of safety, you have to substract 5 km/h for every bottle of vodka
you drank. Safety first - that's our motto on Polish roads.

Aha...that explains the guy i saw in a Skoda......

Doing 30 kph... along the bottom of a ditch.....

At least he had the common courtesy to stay out of the way! ;-)

Yes.... he was not causing any obstruction at all...

does anyone know why my idiotic country drives on the wrong side? i don't drive but it terrifies me driving with friends anywhere else because i feel i'm back to front.

i would google this but i need a simple explanation due to the very large hangover manifesting in my head.

ow.

also that is some scary driving on the first video. if we drove like that on the m6 or m1 it wouldn't end pretty. Althoug english drivers seem to have that massive road rage problem i don't see with other eu drivers on the ferries. When i'm at work the other eu drivers are always the nicest when boarding, its the english who are really impatient and don't listen.

Read/heard somewhere that it had to do with knights passing on the road (it's easier to attack and/or defend yourself from the left side if you're right-handed).

I have no idea if that's true.

How dare you.... ha..!

We English drive on the correct side of the road.....its everyone else who is wrong...

You are right about the road rage thing though , just don,t seem to see it in Poland....

Mafketis has the right idea :)

When you mount a horse , you always mount from the left side of the horse this is due to your sword being on the left side of your body , and avoids having to drag your long sword over the horses back....

Funny enough you mount a motorcycle from the same side....

Hang on a moment...they had knights in Poland and other parts of Europe too....how come they do it the opposite way....? They can,t all have been left handed...!

ahh see now you mention the knight thing i believe i recall this explanation from maybe primary school or something. i did have my own horse when i was younger but funnily enough i don't own a sword so it would never occur to me lol.


ahh see dilemma again? are you sure we're not the back to front country? or maybe we were the only country who figured out not to hurt the poor horse?

my hangover still doesn't comprehend. :(

there are other countries that drive on the correct side of the road.

Not so many compared to those who drive on the wrong side....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Countries_driving_on_the_left_or_right.svg

Thank you for the words of true wisdom. You put it straight and right for now and for all the times to come.
Hail to You, Great Torq!


It's all about this bloody French scum, frog-eater Napoleon Bonaparte (so called Imperator).

He imposed some silly ideas on every country he conquered.
Ideas like civil rights, Roman-like structure of the law and driving on the wrong side of the road.
No doubts that he did it for sole reason to make Englishmen looks stupid and outdated.
He accomplished this task with a great success BTW.

He didn,t conquer the UK though....did he...?

Nah. And that is why they suffer for all this ages. :)
And for the ages that yet to come...

Plus , being mostly right handed, it's more effective when giving two fingers to the twat that's just overtaken you

the two fingered thing is all the fault of the bloody French as well

Why not just have several lanes?

one reason would be cost. another would be that to widen most roads would involve cutting down trees. and that is something Poles are allergic to

Trees and forests are nice.

i happen to like the two fingered salute. much more effective than the middle finger, especially when my fourth finger tries to stick up with it. My thumb can only hold one out of control finger down at a time :)

bloody frogs. It would be much easier everyone driving the same. I do want to actually sit my driving test at some point (i have done the lessons, just didn't take the test) but i know i will be moving away from this blessed island when i graduate in the merch and i'm too scared to learn over here and then make stupid mistakes when i move abroad. I'm likely to cause a massive pile up on a roundabout or similar.

Its so much easier driving ships. We all follow the same rules and regs. Although much scarier if you crash the ship than a car!!

there seems to be quite a few trees going for the chop around my way....

but i guess thats progress...the roads are so narrow here that two trucks passing each other have to both go onto the grass verge , and risk hitting the trees or each other....

its sad to see healthy trees cut down though...

indeed they are, but at the end of the day a tree is just a tree and i don't like to think that a car may be wrapped around it.

when the millenium bridge was built here in wroclaw there was an outcry because a number of trees had to be cut down. this in the greenest city in Poland.

if roads are to be built then they should be built with an understanding of future traffic flow and safety. that means wider roads and no fcuking trees.