Poland's supreme administrative court rules against RHD cars

On Wednesday Poland's highest court upheld an earlier decision that Poland doesn't have to allow right-hand drive cars to be registered in Poland.

English story here: britishinpoland.com/blog/2010/01/poland-again-refuses-rhd-cars/

Looks like this issue won't be resolved until it goes all the way to EU court...

Right hand drives in a left hand drive country are too dangerous for overtaking.
I believe it is a safety issue rather than anything else and Poland is trying to minimize accidents, goodness knows there are enough already.
To be honest I think Ireland and Britain should just change sides, they are the only two countries in Europe that have in the other way. Like the metric system instead of the imperial.

Then why is it possible in most other EU countries (France, Germany, Belgium..) which have a much better road safety record than Poland?

Poland has a terrible amount of road accidents.
But if you have driven a car on the road that is not the correct side drive, you will know that it is dangerous to overtake.

I presume Poland is looking to minimalize accidents.

Bullfrog, Why don't Ireland and Britain just change?

No they aren't. With small changes to your driving style they are about as safe as LHD and with a small change to the equipment, they are safer than LHD.


Care to compare the chances of an accidents being caused by a person who is either drunk or driving far too fast to one being caused by a RHD car? Driving stupidly fast is perfectly accepted by Polish society and drink driving isn't much frowned on.


First, driving on the left is safer: the rest of Europe should change. Secondly, UK uses all metric except miles, pints (although everything bottled is dual labeled)and troy ounce (for gold), Ireland doesn't even use miles anymore!

Prove it.


Both are illegal here in Poland.


Prove it.


I am fully aware of that, I said


So now you are just confirming what I have said and are making it into an argument.

I agree, but the cause is reckless and aggressive drivers and poor roads. In most continental EU countries you can register a right hand drive car and the rate of accidents is lower..


That would be the right thing to do (and it is feasible, Norway did it in the 50s or 60s, I can't remember), but one of the charms of Britain (for Ireland, I don't know..) is that it does things differently from the rest of Europe..

they like to comlicate things so why not take the middle ground RHD cars should be able to be legally registered to non Poles only, that would do it.

Has anybody witnessed the way the Poles in UK plated cars drive like when there back for the holidays, like absolute nut cases.

I agree also, I think that the accidents are so high here that they have to be seen to do everything possible to make it safer.

I want to see what Harry pulls out,

Fine. Which needs to stick out more into on-coming traffic when checking to see if it is safe to overtake in Poland: a standard LHD vehicle or a RHD vehicle fitted with a video camera on the outside edge of the left-hand wing mirror and a flipdown LCD screen in the sunvisor?


Fine. "Research in 1969 by J. J. Leeming showed countries driving on the left have a lower collision rate than countries driving on the right. It has been suggested this is partly because humans are more commonly right-eye dominant than left-eye dominant.[24][25][26] In left-hand traffic, the predominantly better-performing right eye is used to monitor oncoming traffic and the driver's wing mirror. In right-hand traffic, oncoming traffic and the driver's wing mirror are handled by the predominantly weaker left eye. In addition, it has been argued that left sided driving is safer for elderly people given the likelihood of them having visual attention deficits on the left side and the need at intersections to watch out for vehicles approaching on the near-side lane.[27] Furthermore, in a RHD car, the driver has his right (i.e. dominant) hand on the steering wheel at all times and use his left hand to change gear.

Cyclists and horse riders[28] typically mount from the left hand side. This places them on the kerb when driving on the left."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic#Safety_factors


A lot of EU countries have changed over: Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary all changed over after being occupied by the Nazis. Bit worrying for Sean that he shares the same views with the Nazis on a couple of subjects!

I've driven a rhd car in Poland for nearly 3 years and 70,000 miles and never had a problem at all, When overtaking you just have to adjust your road position accordingly and its just as safe as driving a LHD.

Poland really needs to sort its act out as its just utterly ridiculous the way they simply take take take from the EU and give nothing back.

The accident rate in Poland is simply down to the incompetent idiots they let on the roads and nothing to do with which side they drive on.

Would the same adjustments on a LHD not make it also safer?


I quoted the same article.

Have you anything else than a British road engineer from 1969?


I agree with this.


I don't think it is as safe.

The daughter of a good friend of mine was nearly killed in a crash caused by a driver who has no driving licence. The guy's licence was taken away because he drove like a nutter (even by Polish standards) but he didn't bother getting a new one and didn't bother to wait for the ban to expire: he just carried on driving. No action at all was taken against him for causing the accident or for driving without a licence (he just bribed his way out of trouble).


Yes it would. So in the name of safety we need to ban all LHD cars which do not have that system.


Leaving out one small but important fact. I have seen some better evidence, let me try to dig it up.


And this is based on you driving a RHD car here for how long?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic#Changing_to_right-hand_traffic


Now you are talking through your hat.
I believe a rational thing to do would be to have RHD cars with the appropriate changes made.


That would be good.


I have driven RHD here and LHD in other RHD countries.
You don't even drive Harry.

I used to have a small camera installed in the passenger side wing mirror casing with a live feed to the GPS screen which made a fantastic difference when overtaking as you could just look at the screen to see what was coming, It cost about £70 all in and half a days work, It seems to be quite a good idea when driving a RHD abroad. Couldn't be bothered rigging one up again though.

This might be a reasonable compromise.

Really? Can you explain why I used to be employed as the motoring correspondent of a newpaper here and have a different new car every month? You appear to know rather less than you think you do.

So do you drive a RHD here now or not?


I thought you said you did not drive here because you find the public transport systems good.
I could be mistaken, it could have been someone else, was it you?

^ I now have a LHD car. My RHD car had to go back to the UK, getting parts here was too difficult. I do generally prefer to take public transport when it's a viable option: for example I'd never drive to Krakow and usually don't drive to Lublin, I only drive in Warsaw when I need the cargo carrying capacity.

That explains why I thought you didn't drive.

I would be interested in reading any information about RHD being safer than LHDs that you can get.
I think it should work out about the same, like inches and centimetres.

HI ALL
first time on site. I think its the best idea what the court has done. I have lived in PL on and off for 5 years. The roads are mental enough due to the poor driving standards and many road surfaces. To add an influx of poles in rhd vehicles to the mix would be a bad idea.

I agree with that, and there would be thousands.

Another solution would be to make every one drive a McLaren F1 roadcar then the problem of LHD or RHD goes away.

Lateral thinking at its worst

Perhaps you have a point with the poles in rhd vehicles but what about brits? I'm certain that I drive my RHD car in a much safer manner than 99% of poles on the road in their LHD cars. I personally hate driving whilst sitting on the left hand side of the car, it just doesnt feel safe taking your right hand off the steering wheel to change gear and adjust the heating etc.

There's nothing stopping Poles from driving RHD vehicles: they just can't register them (which means they probably don't have insurance either).

Most of them don't have tax so you are probably right, Theres a lexus soarer down the road from me which looks like it hasn't seen an MOT for many years and theres no tax in the window.

That is a fact that some poles are driving rhd cars. In my imediate area there are 8 british plated rhd cars being used.

Get a car with auto shift and heating!

Cars with automatic gearboxes are inherently more dangerous than cars with manual gearboxes.

and may I ask where this strangebelief comes from?