Why oh Why do Poles drive so incredibly poorly

No, it is you that is not listening despite overwhelming evidence against you.
I give up!!

You give up in the heat of the fascinating discussion? After all my logical explanations and attempts to make you aware of basic truths of life in Poland you turn your back and say it was all futile??? Milo, come on, give me a break. I have invested too much time and energy in you for you to give up.


Yes, seatbelts are OK, most people use them.


Yes, hectic style of life. Everybody is speeding first to earn more cash, and then quickly come back to family with money.

And I still claim it has little to do with being a good or bad driver. These are completely different things. Milo, can you hear me?

You have not made any logical explanations at all.
You are just in denial.
The only poster to deny poor Polish drivers in the whole of this thread.... you are clearly nuts or playing mind games.
I don't believe you are nuts..... so the alternative is the obvious answer.
But why?

I logically explained to you that your claims about Poles being the worst drivers in Europe are worthless coz they are based on your subjective opinion and inappropriate sources instead of on meaningful research. :)) Don`t you understand that the major source you proudly provided doesn`t prove in a plausible way if Poles are bad drivers or not coz there are too many other factors which need to be taken into account?

Absolute bo##ocks...you are in denial.... ignore me, answer all the other posters that disagree with you, like Torq, and stop being such a twat.

Never! I never give up on my halfwit students, I work on them till they eventually understand. :):) You are like one of them and I feel I must help you.

Poles driving badly is a myth by under achieved and jealous foreigners.I have been driving 20 years in Poland and have not seen much difference then NYC drivers.Most of Polish drivers are just fine.Its just like the Brit Bullies were making fun of Poles.

Some are doing it out of pure malice, others are brainwashed. :)

its AMERICAN

• 
  this is my car
  

You haven't been much around have you? I guess with your limited experience you might think so.

Are you a Dutch? That explains it. You flying dicks seems to have something against Poles.


Sorry who are exactly Polish drivers. Polish people driving in Poland or drives if Polish ethnicity? I have seen lots of bad drivers or bad habits in foreigner countries I have no reason believe that all those people have been Polish.

Most issues you listed they are doing to - mostly women or old geezers.
The thing is nobody is perfect.

Today they drive better than 5 years ago.

They've gone down the table for accident stats which is a plus. Poland hasn't been at the top of the list for a few years now.

The driving is still often very poor though.

Debatable.

The cars are generally safer and the roads are better, so there are fewer deaths, but excessive speed is still a huge problem.

That's typical of Poland's cultural profile and won't change.

Poland ranks high in 'uncertainty avoidance' which among lots of other interesting stuff correlates with reckless driving which then correlates with lots of traffic accidents/deaths.

In general this is true of most of southern and eastern Europe. Better cars and roads ameliorate that to some extent but not entirely.

The British Isles, Netherlands and Scandinavia are low in uncertainty avoidance which correlates with safer, generally slower, driving.

Rubbish. I could solve Poland problem with excessive speed in 12 months and at zero cost to the taxpayer. All that needs to be done is outsourcing enforcement to the private sector. Just give any company that wants one a sealed unit containing a speed sensor and a camera, then let them put the things where-ever they want and give them 10% of the fines generated. The problem isn't cultural, it's that there's pretty much zero enforcement, along with minimal fines on the rare occasions when the police are checking speeds, so people think they can just drive at whatever speed they want.

I'd go further and pay bounties to people who provide film of other drivers driving illegally. Got a video of somebody driving at 140 km/h two metres behind the car in front? That's a four thousand zloty fine for him and one thousand zloty tax-free cash for you? Or a video of somebody overtaking on a zebra crossing? Say hello to a tax-free grand from the four he's just been fined. Did you get a video of ten cars overtaking on double white lines? Here's five grand from the twenty they've been fined.

I know for a fact that cameras plus the ability to send film to the police really works. I have an MX-5 with a rear-facing camera that's hard to see when the top is up but very easy to see when the top is down. When the top is up and I'm overtaking on the motorway I regularly get prats coming right up behind and then sitting two metres from my bumper flashing their lights, but when the top is down they zoom up behind and then very quickly drop back to a very safe distance.


They also have significantly higher fines (although in the UK the extra hit from insurance is often higher than the actual fine). Finland has something else I'd like to see introduced in Poland: traffic fines based on income. A four grand fine is a lot of money for somebody on minimum wage but far less to somebody on 30k a month. Although, with this being Poland and so many clever people officially earning minimum wage but somehow driving a leased car that cost 500,000zl, we'd need to have fine which are either a certain percentage of the person's wage or a certain percentage of the value of the car in which the offence was committed, whichever is higher.

Thank God not in 3 days.

Cultures are complex, interacting wholes....

"pretty much zero enforcement" because culturally driving really fast isn't felt to be a big deal needing police intervention

"minimal fines on the rare occasions when the police are checking speeds" ditto

"people think they can just drive at whatever speed they want" exactly!

Uncertainty avoidance is a fascinating thing and cultures with high uncertainty avoidance rates tend to share lots of features, from a preference for elaborate language (an important message needs important sounding language) greater affection for small children (easier to control and more predictable) and dislike of teenagers (harder to control and more unpredictable), higher levels of alcohol consumption (to deal with stress) and political systems that are based on confrontation rather than cooperation and.... generally lower levels of mental illness (nothing like a steady stressful baseline to keep the mind focused).

I was reading about this after your post. A couple of things were surprising. Firstly, the huge difference between Germany and Denmark, and also how high France is.


That's Poland all over.

Germany isn't that high but Denmark (and other Scandi countries, partial exception Finland) are the world's lowest.

A lot of the weirdness (for lack of a better term) of Germany comes from relatively low power distance (less hierarchical than France, for example) but relatively higher uncertainty avoidance. Usually those two track together fairly closely.


Higher uncertainty avoidance in Europe mostly tracks with historical catholicism (Ireland is the biggest exception and might come from anglicization) or Orthodox. Lower uncertainty avoidance is more a protestant thing.