Polish roads
Perhaps ‘Polish people’ would be more appropriate title for this article, because we are directly responsible for the current situation on Polish roads, which is getting worse, because the number of accidents increases during last years. In the context of the last accident in Bielany (for those who did not hear about it, here is a short information: https://www.tvn24.pl/tvn24-news-in-english,157,m/warsaw-man-fatally-hit-by-car-at-a-crosswalk-driver-charged,979277.html), the topic of safety on roads in our country returns.
Road infrastructure is constantly being modernized. Modern solutions in this area are still not as advanced and common as in Western Europe but they finally start to appear on our roads. An example of such solutions is, the so called, intelligent pedestrian crossings. They light up when they detect a pedestrian approaching them, what attracts attention of drivers and increases their caution. Another example, which is unfortunately not present on our roads is an active road hump. This type of solution can be found in Sweden or in the Czech city of Pilsen. The radar in front of a road hump measures the speed of cars and the hump itself, rises or lowers only in front of cars that drive too fast.
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Actibump – active road hump
Source: https://bit.ly/2WjoKpN
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Another aspect of road safety is road traffic law. Our government has recently enacted a law regarding zipper merge rule and emergency corridor. Obeying these rules is (or will be at the turn of 2019 and 2020) mandatory in our country. The zipper merge rule applies when two traffic lanes merge into one. Cars should be merging at the point of lane closure, allowing one car from the closing lane to merge into the open lane with that lane’s cars alternately. The emergency corridor relates to a situation in which, despite traffic congestion on a multi-lane road, it is necessary to allow the emergency services to reach victims. The rule itself is extremely simple, all vehicles on the outermost left lane drive as far to the left as possible. Everybody on the other lanes drives as far to the right as it is possible. Another law-related aspect of safety on our roads are tickets and especially its price. Current ticket prices have been in force since 1997 when the minimum wage was 391zł gross. The following chart presents percentage share of the highest speed penalty in average earnings in a given country for 2016 (countries on the chart, starting from the top, are as follows: Italy, Hungary, Great Britain, Slovakia, France, the Czech Republic, Spain, Romania, Germany, Poland).
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Source: https://bit.ly/2Jq7Ssc
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All safety features in modern cars also contribute to safety on our roads. However, this is such a vast topic that I should write another 400 words to cover it at least partially. I will mention only the V2V (Vehicle to Vehicle) technology, thanks to which it would be possible, for example, to overtake at corners, because the car would know that there are no obstacles behind it and the maneuver would be safe. Sounds great, isn’t it? And this is just one, not the most useful example of using this technology. Here is a short video about V2V communication.
Do you feel safe on Polish roads?
What should be done to increase safety?
Or maybe we should do nothing, because autonomous vehicles will take care of our road safety sooner than later?
Sources:
It depends on how do I use roads. When I’m a pedestrian or I’m riding a bike I do feel unsafe a little bit. It’s obvious that I feel safer when I’m in a car but having all these points of view allows me to be more careful and pay more attention to other road users. I think that the best way to become more forgiving for every road user is to try every mean of transport and understand every situation.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the key factor to road safety is drivers. I agree that infrastructure is also important but it won’t replace people's intelligence. I think that more attention should be paid to learn and educate drivers. I’m not pretty sure how it should be done but I’m sure that there are people that know it.
Autonomous cars are a totally different topic and its safety should be taken into consideration from another point of view.
If people on the roads would at least try to put themselves in the place of others, polish roads would be much safer. Unfortunately I doesn't look like it is even possible. I totally agree with the fact, that drivers education in Poland is a one big misunderstanding.
Delete1. Personally, I feel very uncomfortable on Polish roads, especially in large cities such as Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw and Katowice. This is mainly due to the fact that people have no culture, especially young drivers who want to show off driving. If you want to show your skills, there are special places, e.g. racing tracks.
ReplyDelete2. In my opinion, penalties should be increased, regulations better regulated, and driving a car after drinking alcohol.
3. Autonomous vehicles are a song of the future, for this to work, all cars must communicate with each other, and roads must also be adapted to this system.
At the moment, I think safety will increase if people start thinking and adjusting their driving to current road conditions without showing off.
An important aspect is that the roads themselves should be of good quality and redesign places where accidents often occur.
Driving in bigger cities can be really stressful and usually it takes some time to get used to it. At the same time, it's pathetic, that we are forced to make a choice, get used to that stress or don't drive a car by yourself.
DeleteI must say that I don't feel safe on Polish roads. When someone who is important to me must drive somewhere at night, especially during the weekend, I feel worried if he or she will arrive his/her destination safely. But I don't think that's a matter of infrastructure or lack of modern technology. I think that main problem is people. When I was on holiday in Crete I realized that local people don't obey any road rules. They can overtake you with an emergency lane or when they want to do something unpredictable for other drivers they turn on emergency lights. And even with all this chaos they have I felt more safe, because if you want to drive in Crete you must be careful all the time. In Poland, people can browse Facebook, send text messeges and do anything except looking on the road. Other thing is that we have no culture on roads, in any situations people mostly think that they are more important. So, to increase safety we must change ourselves and then provide modern technology. I don't think autonomous vehicles will be accesible for average family for the next few years so being passive isn't a good option.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of using a phone behind the wheel, many people don't even imagine how dangerous can it be. I often see drivers of brand new, premium cars talking on the phone, despite the fact, that thier cars have bluetooth.
DeleteI think I feel quite safe. Main roads in Warsaw tend to be in a good shape and the route to my hometown is maintained fairly well. There are places which require more attention from government but generally they have good surface and are well lit.
ReplyDeleteI believe the main problem is people mentality and approach if it comes to safety. A lot of accidents are caused by people who break the rules consciously and there's not much we can do until they realize the consequences of their actions. "Unconscious" accidents could be avoided by implementing some nationwide network which warns the driver about traffic lights, pedestrian crossings etc.
I think people lives are important and just doing nothing and waiting for autonomous "revolution" is not really a solution. Also autonomous vehicles wouldn't really solve the problem of safety on roads unless the classic cars were forbidden to use.
The quality of roads in Poland has definitely improved over the last several years. It is a pity that this did not noticeably affect safety.
DeleteUnfortunately, I don’t feel safe on polish roads. The numbers are alarming. A lot of people die each year in road crashes. Things even got worse when mobile phones became highly adopted. This is a common cause of many crashes. Because of constant push notifications, people are less careful and the consequences can be tragic. Sometimes when I watch drivers as a pedestrian I notice then a large part of them use mobile phones while driving. It’s so irresponsible that I’m stuck for words. I’m not sure what actually can be done to increase safety. For sure drivers’ awareness should be increased but it’s easier said than done. Perhaps also speed penalties should be higher. Autonomous vehicles will solve some problems but will probably also introduce some new challenges so I wouldn’t treat it as a remedy for inattentive drivers.
ReplyDeleteIt's not easy to say. I think it depends if I'm moving in the city or countrysides. I know it's not popular opinion but I feel safer and more comfortable driving in cities, maybe because I've learned driving in Warsaw and I feel like it's place for me to drive. The most dangerous time are any polish holidays, there are a lot of sleepy or even drunk drivers and this is the time You have to think for yourself and other drivers, what can be very exhausting and dangerous for longer time.
ReplyDeleteWhat should be done to increase safety?
Still, not popular opinion but I think that fines are not equal. A lot of people drive fast because they feel like they're immune. Also there is need to make some changes in law and public programs for spreading awareness across young drivers. Maybe there are autonomous vehicles on the way, until such vehicles will be enforced by law, which is unlikely possible there will always be space for human mistake.
Thinking about and for others, that's something, that people should learn on their driving courses. Unfortunately most of drivers in Poland don't even bother themselves about thinking of others on the road for a moment.
DeleteI feel safe enough on polish roads, but the reason that I feel it is that I’m experienced driver not condition of polish roads or traffic signs. There should be more and more police patrols – blue lights are the best to make driver drive safely. Also fees should be higher due to be over speed limit. Nevertheless, the main reason that there is so many accidents on roads is the fact that drivers are not aware of what they are doing, e.g. while they are using phones or drive too fast. There should be more social campaigns about drive safety. There is no chance that autonomous vehicle will be distracted or it will brake speed limit. I’m fan of autonomous vehicles.
ReplyDeleteSo, maybe placing flashing blue lights near the roads might increase safety? :)
DeleteDo you feel safe on Polish roads?
ReplyDeleteKind of yes, but it's tricky because it's hard to realize that not everything is on us.
What should be done to increase safety?
It's hard to don't sound foolish but the highest risk on our roads are not the speeding drivers but unskilled (speeding or not) drivers. It was quite mainstream case of Hołowczyc being cough while speeding in his Nissan GTR - I'm not willing to say that he's out of law but I guess highly skilled professional rally driver is much less dangerous than Sebix in his 20 years old BMW. So answering set up question - education & training is out only hope. Mandatory exams are unfunny jokes, it's not about learning good habits it's only about getting necessary document. If someone is interested in driving he'll gain skills anyway but unfortunately most of the drivers aren't. What might really works are Track Safety trainings that aren't obligatory nowadays but are already available by almost all car companies. It might be costly at the first sigh but if we could think about it as an overall safety growth it'll appear as barely nothing.
Or maybe we should do nothing, because autonomous vehicles will take care of our road safety sooner than later?
Topic is really complex, not because of automation being just around the corner but because we're not living utopian world so increasing safety for someone means (widely interpreted) limit for someone else.
Generally, drivers education in Poland is an absolute misunderstanding. The lack of real, useful driving skill is very common and it leads to many serious accidents, that could have been avoided, only if the drivers had invested some money in their education.
DeletePolish roads aren't the safest in the world but there are countries where situation is much worse. Greece for example is a place where drivers drives like there is no highway code. My good friend recently visit this country and said that it was horrible expirience. Personally I think that the best way to decrease car accidents would be to block cars speed in relation to speed limits on roads but this creates a lot of obstacles on its own. Still I believe the biggest problem is reckless driving that happens a lot. Autonomous vehicles is a complicated topic and I'm not sure if they ever will completely replace "human touch". Personally I would prefer to completely close cites for cars and create advance public transport but again such major changes would bring a lot of objections and difficulties.
ReplyDeleteI know, that many many visitors claim Poland is one of the worst places to drive in Europe. Only 5 countries out of 28 rank lower. Poland has some of the worst roads, and there are a large number of drivers who do not meet accepted European driving skill levels.
ReplyDeleteWe have to bear in mind that, Poland is just not as densely populated than the west european countries and people have far less cars than in western Europe. This is an issue in the road network construction. But I do agree, that the quality of roads is getting better every year and it could be a matter if time until we reach European standards.
I think it’s a good thing, that there is zero tolerance for driving under the influence of alcohol. I get annoyed by drivers using phones while driving, this should certainly be prohibited, as it posed a huge threat. The drivers get distracted. Also tired drivers can be dangerous to the surrounding as they have slowerer reaction time. However they are harder to catch, as this cannot be tested like alcohol.
I know that autonomous vehicles, but the case be who will be accountable for an accident caused by them. Obviously a machine cannot be charged only a human - creator.
Undoubtedly, the recent accident that happened in Warsaw became a catalyst for yet another discussion on road conditions and regulations in our country. This tragedy sparked a nationwide debate within activists and politicians, and resulted in a speed breaker being mounted at the place of the accident. Will this be the only action taken in the aftermath of it? Hopefully not, but history shows that we should not expect much from either local or national authorities. Infrastructure, obviously, takes an important role in road safety, but the key factor is the drivers themselves and the way they coexist; this is clearly an issue on our roads, with many drivers failing to comply with the rules of the road (by speeding or careless overtaking just to name a couple). I do believe that the penalty fines for some offences are way too low, especially when compared to other EU countries; the Scandinavian penalising model, based on the offender's annual income rather than one strict fine tariff sounds like a more sensible approach to the subject.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of autonomous vehicles and traffic automation might be another wise and promising concept; even though giving complete control over a vehicle to an autonomous system may be worrying to some, such a system would be a great addition as an accompanying tool (such as ABS) for any driver, especially in a situation of an inevitable collision or other unforeseen event.
It seems like I'm first person in this blog who feel safety on Polish roads.
ReplyDeleteActually I have no car and my opinion is from passenger side, not driver's.
I'm from Ukraine and there are tragedy situation with roads. When I came to Poland first time my first thought about the roads was "wow". So I can really make comparison what the bad roads are.
Car accidents occur for variety of reasons, not just only because of the roads. The most of crushes happens because of drivers distraction, drivers taking their focus away from the road or driving above the speed limit. There are also reasons that depends on weather conditions, like rain or bad visibility on the road.
As I see from the side of passenger, government in Poland do many things to prevent it, but often it's just not enough, because of many reasons that I already mentioned.