Poland has the most dangerous roads in Europe

Number of fatal car accidents in 2001 and 2011 in European countries and Poland.

Maybe it's not surprising that Poland is on top, but magnitude of safety improvement is huge. I don't think that road network changed so much in most developed countries, so it must be caused by safer cars I guess.

it has nothing to do with the roads, it is the way people drive and the fact that you can bribe someone to pass your test.

Where I live the roads are v narrow and it does require some care and courtesy to not have accidents, but hey, we manage usually.

If I see any car being driven erratically with a short haired guy driving with three passengers i would assume it was Poles, and hang right back or turn off the road at the earliest opportunity.

you must have really dangerous roads if you have to turn when you see dangerous driver. And of course it has to do a lot with roads, because on two lanes expressway, lanes are divided and you cannot hit the car going opposite direction while taking over a car.

yes there are many accidents along the main road here, with people overtaking at silly places, luckily you can see the road going over the hills ahead.

as i said if anyone overtakes me who is driving in a Polish kind of way, (eg speeding, overtaking on the brow of the hill, edging into the other lane to see ahead of cars in front)

the I would turn off and take a different route to town.

" because on two lanes expressway, lanes are divided and you cannot hit the car going opposite direction while taking over a car."
and anyone who overtakes on a single track road is an idiot btw.

I agree with normaldriver, it has a lot to do with Polish drivers and their mentality when they drive.
If you're a pedestrian, you need to be very careful when you cross a street, cuz drivers usually don't give a sh!t about crossings, and they drive too fast.

Once, I was driving my cousin's car, with her, and she found odd that I let pedestrians cross the street.
Another time, in another town, a big SUV overtook us on the right, on the SIDEWALK. How crazy is that?
These figures are scary but they don't surprise me. They're a total shame for Poland tho.

Monitor, I'm really not sure that Serbia, Georgia, and Romania's roads are better developed than Poland's. It really is about mentality.

I'm actually surprised to see that France is not so bad. The French are clearly not the most 'civic' drivers in Europe, but we're doing well in that ranking.

Maybe it's due to all the radars we have now...

yes sometimes I used to drive with a Polish friend, and he would actually laugh at me when you do that thing of letting another driver go first and they acknowledge with a little wave of the fingers....for him this was really strange behaviour.....

I agree. I've driven in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and the drivers are just so gosh done polite to each other and, especially, to pedestrians, that it makes driving for everyone a sheer pleasure. I actually loathe driving in Poland, and wouldn't even consider buying a car here for that reason.

www3.weforum.org/docs/CSI/2012-13/GCR_Pillar2_2012-13.pdf
Serbia - 120
Romania - 132
Georgia - 55

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita
Poland - 537
Serbia - 238
Romania - 235
Georgia - 155

So, as you see Poland has similar quality of roads as Romania and Serbia, but 2 x more cars. When you look at map, Serbia has one long highway across the country. Taking into consideration size of Poland, it would need few of them and in 2011 - the time of publishing ranking none of currently constructed highways was ready.

yes well sorry but if the standard of driving and normal courtesy were raised, the death rate would go down correspondingly.

I agree, but in my opinion improving standard of roads is simpler. And about people in Poland dangerously overtaking. I think that it's easier to constrain yourself from doing that on one lane road, when you know that this should be done on 2 lanes roads only. But until recently, there was nearly no 2 lanes inter city roads, so it was hard to understand that one should never overtake.

Monitor, you can't put the sole responsability on the quality of roads. I'm sure it has a minimum impact on the figures.
Responsible and civic drivers wouldn't have that many accidents, even on disastrous roads.
You just need to have a quick look at how Poles (at least many of them) drive and you'll understand the ranking.

Even my (female) Polish teacher, who seemed very nice and responsible, was probably not so nice and responsible when driving.
She didn't even know that the speed limit on Polish highways was 140km/h. She told me that when she was alone (in the car), she would drive faster than that, without hesitating, because 'everybody does that', that was her argument.

Spot on. Too many times I've heard people moan that it's the fault of the roads. Sorry, but if the roads are bad, the driver should be more careful. People say crap like "you can drive there in an hour but a really good driver can do it in 40 minutes".. That is not 'good' at all - it's just reckless stupidity.

The Sarmacka fantazja, as they sometimes call particularly bad examples of driving is nothing to be proud of.

I love driving in Poland, its like driving in most places, there are unwritten rules which you pick up on. London's probably the greatest example of unwritten rules, there is a definite system in place which you cant teach you just kind of learn on the job.

so, the roads being widened to two lane highways have made it


and yet you are calling for further road improvement? amazing.
like I say, raise driving standards!!

I think that finishing express ways in Poland can improve this ranging by 30%. In 10 years we can see who was right.


I said exactly opposite. The lack of 2 lanes roads made it hard to understand that one should never overtake.

How? its a 'cant beat them join them' state at the moment.

Arab countries are the worst ive known though, makes Poland seem like a general warm up in comparison.

Agreed. Sadly I expect drivers not to stop at the equivalent of zebra crossings, but I've actually been on light controlled crossings when drivers have run the lights and almost knocked me down!

Imo things will not improve unless drivers are re-educated. Whether the driving test needs to be tougher I don't know. Incidentally, I was quite surprised to learn that by law drivers are only obligated to stop at zebra crossings if someone is actually on one.


+1

Ditto.

When I drive here I occasionally let other drivers who don't have priority out of their road. About a third of the time I get a thanks (about the same rate of thanks as I get when I give up my seat to an elderly person on a tram or bus).

When I walked out yesterday, I was witness to 4 near-misses:
1. A driver nearly slammed into the back of another at a traffic light queue in Bielany W.
2. A driver came across a junction on the wrong side of the road somehow, perhaps he'd left a nearby shop or house. Bus nearly smashed into him.

3. Car mounted pavement to overtake car in urban area roadworks queue that was starting to pick up speed but obviously not fast enough for him in his big new Land Rover or whatever it was. He drove like a bandit.

4. Car screeched away in Tesco car park only to have to slam its brakes on 10 metres away anyway where queues formed.

Barely a trip passes when I don't see 2 cars nearly collide at a crossroads. Tailgating and speeding and being on phones are almost every other car round here.

Luckily, in 10 years, the attitudes will have changed too.

We must live in different countries. I drive carefully and am kind to pedestrians and most others around me too.

different cities?

I know tons of people in PL who drive very safely, anticipate what other drivers and pedestrians are going to do and are as good as the best drivers anywhere. It's the ones who aren't like that who are a problem unfortunately.

I once had to wait ages for a friend on ul. Sobieskiego and passed the time by counting the drivers who went through the red light at a pedestrian crossing. I was a bit shocked.

Even if you live here, you're in the minority OR there are sufficient nutters around to render your good example much less obvious. Pretty much every time I observe traffic here I want to nick the lot of them.

When driving company car, with huge well known logo on side, I'm kind of an angel, careful and kind to pedestrians
but people, for God's sake, be careful after 15oo ;)

Not so of everyone. The car that roared away with a screech of tyres yesterday at Tesco, a display of appallingly bad tailgating and impatience, had some company logo emblazoned on it. If it was you, your right side headlight urgently needs adjustment as it's dazzling everyone and put some air in your tyres too!

There is some good news: 15% reduction from 2011-12, and PL now ranks "only" 3rd worst... See latest data for 2012.


It has much more to do with the attitude of the drivers (first and foremost sticking to simple rules such as adjusting your speed to existing driving/road conditions), driver training, and severity of law/penalties more than anything else... I would be very much in favour of the following the leader (UK) in driver training/attitude and severity of penalties for violators.

Apologies man. You know, there is some heat near Tescos currently. Fight for parking places and enormous queues inside.

One of the reasons I didn't drive there, the parking spaces were very few! But even so, Tesco wasn't as busy as Auchan, not by a long chalk.

could you give proper url?

Apologies, here it is: europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-236_en.htm