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New Polish traffic laws [25]
would never work in Poland because our people would not understand them"
They would if there was a proper public information campaign. For God's sake, I remember a hundred years ago in Ireland we had ads on telly explaining things like Pelican crossings etc. But of course PIS would rather throw 500 a month at people than spend a few quid on an advertising campaign to save lives.
And how do they work? Because I didn't notice anything special about them....
Well, did you notice Lenka that when the man is green, the pedestrian has right of way? In Poland, if the cars are turning right, the pedestrian SHARES the bloody right of way with the drivers!!! Works fine if the driver has the common courtesy to allow pedestrians to cross, which I'm sorry to say, they frequently don't. Another clearly observable safety issue with that system is that you frequently see cars speeding up as they approach such crossings in order to get there ahead of approaching pedestrians and 'beat them to it' so they don't have to wait for them to cross.
Also allowing right of way to cars and pedestrians at the same time means that cars on the inside line whose view of the road ahead is obstructed by vans and trucks in the outside lanes, come up the inside lane at great speed while the man is green and proceed with no caution at all, all they see is that they have the green light for turning right. It never occurs to them that pedestrians may be in the act of crossing.
When the man is green that should be the sole right of the pedestrian to use the crossing. That would be a nice start to pedestrian safety in Poland.
In the end it's all part of the terrible, terrible driver education and appalling driving skills of Polish people. It simply cannot be denied because the figures speak for themselves, one of the worst road death rates in the EU.
I always wait to see the car is serious about stopping
I always put my hand up traffic cop style and basically 'command' them to stop. Would you believe it works!
