Beer and cycling - it's time for Poles to act

Taxpayer Dougpol here. Totally and utterly fed up with you people doing nothing to sort this out.

Come on Poles.

Show me you are not the whipping boys I believe you to be.

Stop lying down and accepting this ridiculous law that can send people to jail for having a few beers and cycling. Support the chap from Poznan who is fighting the good fight!

The BBC are FINALLY on the case after 20 years and this should concentrate slow Polish political minds surely?

http-ws.bbc.co.uk.edgesuite.net/mp3/learningenglish/2012/0 9/120 911_witn_report_with_intro_120911_witn_poland_cyclists_report_au_ bb.mp3

It is beer alcoholics who suffer - and this law is draconian - and those who support it deserve to be confronted with all means at our disposal.

This includes willful disobedience of this ridiculous law, and mass action.

Enough is more than enough and we should not wait any more for the fools in parliament to "discuss" a 20 year old law which is making your country a laughing stock and disrupting decent families everywhere.

Why aren't your priests speaking out against this totalitarian measure? Are they really too busy conducting their illicit affairs to care?

Police of Katowice - I wear a Scotland racing kit and will continue to cycle and drink a few beers in the woods of Silesia - and you had better be ready for a brawl if you dare to apprehend me :))

I for one totally support it. Anyone who drives a car in Poland is all too aware of the average 50-something drunkard who cycles on the main road between villages. I nearly hit one such drunk bastard one night - he was cycling in the total darkness, no lights, nothing - I saw him, moved over, and he swerved quite severely to the left as I approached him. I was very close to throwing him in the ditch by the side of the road.


Go ahead. I wonder how long you'll last in Poland if you try and "disobey" them.

Please, tell me - what's the difference between a drunk driver causing an accident and a drunk cyclist?

Shouldn't be drinking and driving, even if its a bike. I can't open the link, so whats the fine or sentence?

I know a family who have to look after their vegetable grandpa who cycled drunk and had an accident. Today he needs a change of diapers a few times a day.

Delph -I didn,t have you down as an idiot sir - but that is what you are :)

Dear oh dear.

Now creep back into your superior world.

And anyway - people who nearly hit cyclists in villages are driving how fast?

The speed limit is 40 km an hour? my car can stop dead in 10 feet at that speed.

I've lasted 20 years by the way successfully running businesses - and surviving day to day as well ta very much - and I still fight injustice wherever I see it.

Says the person who drinks and drives

This is truly an outrage more cyclists in jail than drivers!!
Jesus man words fail me,


Cyclist dies no one else hurt. Driver causes carnage to others

Que? I don't follow you? Oh sorry - of course you have never been under the influence when you get in your car in the morning?

What does driving have to do with cycling and having a beer in a woodland pub?

I think we should be told.

No, I haven't actually. I value other peoples lives. Sorry to disappoint...

1-2 I'm sure is ok, but until you've hit someone riding a bike who's drunk and all over the road, you believe what you want.

Yes - the average Pole seems at a loss for words too Barney.

In the meantime - none cyclists like Delph. believe it below their moral radar to react to an unjust law. Unbelievable.

jdthebrit it seems to me that although you popping down the road and having a few beers on yer bike maybe the most innocent and practical thing in the world a line has to be drawn. Many Polish people pop down the village roads on their bikes and ride back blind drunk swerving all over the place, and this is why this law was passed. In order to save lives....

If you're driving like a madman and not according to the situation - viz - it's a village - and there is a local bloke who's well over the eight - then you deserve to be treated in the same way as him.

I know how to drive - and expect the unexpected in Poland.

It's drivers here who are barking mad. Watch the BBC report.

Poles - the worst drivers in Europe. QED

I take the bike to me mates and bar so I can have a drink would never dream of driving with even one drink. If driving me and the missus take turns

A sane and sensible post - thanks :)

However - this law was promulgated 20 years ago - and the times they are a changing. But try telling that to Polish politicians - and in the meantime everyday people are spending time behind bars and we are paying for it. I have been lucky - ducking and diving - or just directly laughing in the cops face and darting off through the bush, but others are intimidated and lie down before this archaic law.

I repeat - time to press home the BBC condemnation and to write to your MP.

Wiser minds than mine have stated the same.

No, the idiot is someone who drinks and then cycles a bike. I used to be able to cycle at 25mph - if I hit someone at that speed, it was going to hurt them.


Between villages? 90km/h, legally.


50km/h during the day, 60km/h at night. I'm willing to bet you a considerable sum of money that you can't stop a car in 10 feet at even 40km/h.


Not always. A cyclist who swerves onto the road causing the driver to also swerve straight into a tree or a ditch can quite easily cause trouble. The law was made for exactly that reason - too many people riding bikes while absolutely wasted.


What? Don't try and insult me, little man. I ride a bike almost as much as I drive - and I don't do either when drunk.

Gotta love these foreigners who come over here and start trying to tell the locals how to live their lives. The locals don't want to have to deal with scraping dead drunks off the floor, or deal with the trauma to drivers who have hit one of these drunks.


I'm sure you have. Experience tells me that if you were actually caught by the Polish police, you'd be panicking and demanding to phone the embassy.

So you dont drink then Bacon?

A lot of people are caught over the limit in the morning at 6 after 3 or so beers the night before. There but for the grace of God go I. And others here I should think. But not you, the high and mighty eh?

Do you actually know what you are talking about? You sound like one of those young squirts straight out of Longmans. training camp in Blighty, which mummy paid for, who thinks he's an authority on all things Polish. Am I close to the mark?

I don't drive the morning after beers before. If I want to, I do the responsible thing and nip over to the local police station and get my breath tested. They're very good in Poland and will test you quite happily for booze - it's actually in law that they must test you upon request. Then again, I'm not some middle aged macho idiot who thinks that all Poles are stupid and that I can do what I want. It's their law and their decision.


Oh look, another one of those TEFL bores who thinks that he's here to change the world. Let's not forget that he wasn't actually good enough to do anything in the UK.

Good luck to you if you think that mouthing off to the police in Poland is going to result in anything other than a good hiding.

Delph - you live your life, and I'll live mine - but seeing as you support this law I have you down as a unlikeable bigoted conservative - and you have me down as a drunk ill-educated leftie - and we'll leave it at that.

I've lived here for 20 years - and feel very happy to do whatever I can to support the enlightened population who realise the ridiculousness of this law. Being a person of some education you should appreciate the misquote of "the law being an ass" and so forth :)

I will happily ignore the barb of "little man" - far too much beer and pizza I fear:)

Nope, actually I'm 39 and my city is NYC, so I'm familiar with drunken cycling deaths.

On your last post Delph you are making yourself look a berk. Give it up mate - you're killing me. You actually go to the police and genefluct before them? You must have one sore hole there my friend.

Please - I'm wetting myself laughing here in old Kato - I didn't have you down as a fool. You are the type I left Britain to get away from :))

You have a good point but I still think its the safer option for those who drink to oblivion
The report said more merry cyclists in jail than drunk drivers;) There is something wrong there.

Except I'm a social democrat who believes firmly in the right of freedom of action provided your actions don't infringe upon other people's freedom. Don't compare to the UK - you only rarely get drunken idiots cycling between villages there. In Poland? It's rife, and the idiots have no concept of taking back roads. I could take you to one piece of road where doing 90km/h is normal and allowed - and it's also normal to spot one or two idiots cycling there, clearly drunk and waving around the place.


Actually - from what I know about this (having watched a report about it on BBC not so long ago) - the real thing is that only these village drunks are going to jail. Anyone that can afford a lawyer and can put up a reasonable defence will settle for their licence being taken away (or fined) - but they're also not usually found cycling on main roads between villages too.

Are you sure about that 20 years figure, by the way? I thought the law was changed under the 2001-2005 SLD government?

The law wouldn't make sense in Western countries - but it does in a specifically Polish context.


I love my driving licence and have a passion for driving on mountain roads - I'm not going to risk it for the sake of pride :) Their machines are calibrated - over the counter alkomat things aren't. Honestly - why wouldn't you?

(surely, as a leftie, you would be against the conservative attitude of ***** everyone else, I'm allright"?)

What is the average sober drivers attitude to sober cyclists?

From what I've read here its not good, weaving all over the road usual means you are in the way sober or not.

Great - now we're having a debate I'll cut out the childish and needless insults :)

Er......

Yes - drunken fools should keep off 90 km roads - but by the same token when the hell are we going to get cycle lanes? Things are improving, but here in Katowice the cycle route marking between cities is pis- poor at best.

It was actually the Beeb who said it was a 20 year old law - I believe you are 100 per cent correct in the 2000 date and the SLD being the legislator.

Because I am a democrat, I am incensed when the wishes and rights of recreational cyclists are ridden over roughshod in such a way (no pun intended)

And as for the penalties - even that of losing your driving licence,is severe and morally indefensible on the side of the legislature IMO. I personally had the dubious pleasure (which was mutual I am certain) of exchanging pleasantries with Mr Miller in the town hall car park in Jastrzebrie Zdroj in the distant past when he was PM, and had great pleasure in my best Polish at telling him what a prize communist clown he is/was.

As a taxpayer, you understand.

At least with me - I give them a wide berth and don't attempt to squeeze past them in just one lane. My golden rule - if they don't have room to fall off, don't overtake.


Cycle lanes are starting to come - when I'm next there, I'll take pictures of a cracking set up in a place near Poznan that has around 15km of the things alongside (but not joined to) the main road. I'm hugely in favour of them - the law could then be relaxed slightly to only prohibit drunken cycling on the roads.


I think it's because the threat of losing your licence is far more severe than the threat of being fined.

The real problem, of course - is that those drunks who already lose their licence couldn't care less about the presence of a licence or not, they still drink. I'm not so convinced that the BBC article isn't a bit sensationalist - it could very well be that many of these drunks are actually in prison for having been caught drink driving and then caught drink cycling too. If you've been banned for drink/something, a second offence - well - most people would agree that prison should follow.

If you're serious about taking it further, I'd try and find out why people have been sent to prison in the first place - I'm not sure that people are going for first time offences.

I must add however the simple point that:

For 10 years this law HAS infringed on peoples' freedoms.

And in a democratic European state - where I am a citizen and pay my taxes - and am hard working enough to be an employer myself - I feel entitled to fight it.

And I shall :))

Thanks BBC for adding your voice, even though you were a tad slow off the mark, 10 years late. :(

Actually - I've just found out that there are laws against it in England/Wales too. And has been since 1988 - section 30 of the Road Traffic Act, or if you want to get more interesting - it was outlawed under the 1872 Licencing Act. It seems that it can be punished with jail time, too.

Perhaps the BBC should start with England before complaining about Poland?

Are you suggesting that the BBC should not comment on international affairs? British archaic laws, whether they be bye-laws or whatever - or rarely enforced.

For example - when was someone last imprisioned for publicly ridiculing the monarchy?

Not when the same situation exists in many other countries throughout the world. I've been reading about it for the last while, and the same punishments exist in America for instance - licence revoked and jailtime.

The BBC already made a fool out of themselves with Sol's comments about coffins, after all.

Seems to be that if you're doing what the typical Polish village drunk does (swaying all over the road, etc) - then you'll get nicked in the UK too.

Any of these blind drunks ever walk into a road? They should not walk then, either. Bike is not a weapon, like a car. Punishment should be more in line with walking drunk, then with driving drunk.

than, dammit