Myth #19: Polish people can drive
Of course I’ve seen them drive. A Polish person gets in a car, the engine starts, and the vehicle roars off into the distance in a cloud of blue smoke. They’re clearly pushing the right peddles and pulling the right levers. But that’s where it seems to end. As far as I’m concerned the real trick to driving is avoiding running into things, for example other cars and human beings. I’m always slightly worried by this sign:
Do you really need a sign reminding you NOT to drive into people?
Polish drivers are absolute bastards. I tried to find a more polite word, but there wasn’t one. Walking across a road in Poland is taking your life in your hands. For some reason, that I am completely unable to understand, Polish drivers believe that they become enormously more important than everybody else as soon as they step into a car. This means that they are perfectly entitled to barge other people off the road or run down pedestrians as they see fit. In other words they don’t give a flying kurwa for anyone else (English translation: begins with an ‘F” ends with an ‘K’ and isn’t ‘Fork’).
Poland! Why is this? What the hell is wrong with you people?
While we don’t see eye-to-eye on the girls post…
I’ve literally hit the bonnet of a taxi who was slowly – but surely – running my wife and I down as we crossed in the pedestrian crossing (zebra) after getting out of a tram. Not to mention the innumerable times I’ve yelled at people for not stopping or (just as bad!!!) stopping in the god-damned zebra.
It is odd, isn’t it, that the same people that walk – and are delayed by these sorts of drivers – do the same exact thing that irritates them (it does… doesn’t it?) when they get into their (or someone’s) car.
When I’m driving and I see someone walking up to the pedestrian crossing I make a point to stop… ESPECIALLY if there are other cars behind me. It’s a bit irritating to me to see them look over at my car, somewhat incredulously, before making their way across… but at least I stop and at least they go.
It’s not so much to ask, is it? A quick stop so we can dart across the road?
Poles CAN drive ! :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epjNUVhpZ_U
Guest: Ok, that’s it. I have to ask. How come you jump on every single one of our posts within minutes of their being posted (in the nicest and most entertaining way possible)? And always with the perfect image or video as a response. You’re a spy aren’t you… go on admit it…
Agreed. Poles make bad drivers and even worse pedestrians. There are exceptions, but not too many. They seem to excel at both of these at the weekend.
Island, perhaps a better question should be what country has the best drivers or safest… every country I have been in this past year or so can arguably be considered to have bad or inept drivers… be it in a taxi with them or just walking near a street can be taking your life in your hands…. but what place is safe… is it Germany with its expensive training or some other place I have never thought of….
just a thought…
I agree with all the comments. Poles can’t drive and it’s amazing how scared I’ve become of crossing the road now, especially whilst pushing a stroller. My husband has major rage fits over this whole “won’t stop at the zebra, even though the green man tells the pedestrians to go” thing. He once punched the bonnet of a car as it tried to drive past him. He also now walks eeeeexxxxttrrraaaa slowly on the zebras when the lights are green for pedestrians, so the cars trying to turn are forced to sit there. He’s normally the calmest man around and the most patient one, but the lack of respect has really put a bee in his (very masculine) bonnet.
I don’t know why Poles are so rude to each other and to the pedestrians while in a car, I really don’t. But I wish they’d stop.
Btw…that youtube vid…I mean, WHAT IS THE POINT? He’s got a crap little car with the engine of a hairdryer or lawnmower and he turned it around, so he seems to drive backwards. I mean, what is the point? What an idiot.
Why do Polish people behave the way they do in cars?
1. Cars are largely still status symbols in ways they aren’t in some other countries. Driving a car makes some (maybe most) Poles in some undefined way feel like bigshots and what’s the point of being a nice or considerate bigshot?
2. Poles drive the way they walk (the movement patterns of cars on the highway are more or less exactly the same as people on a sidewalk). That many ignore lanes doesn’t suprise me, I’m just surprised they (mostly) stay on the right side of the road.
3. The internal clocks of most Polish people are doubled and tripled once they’re behind the wheel. The same person who has a “later, it’s not the last minute yet” attitude to most things is overcome by the idea “Oh My God! I have to get there as fast as possible!!!! Now!!!!” once they turn the key in the ignition (there is also a subset of Polish drivers that can’t stand the thought of a cars being ahead of them and want to pass them at all costs).
4. Many don’t look around. When I was in driving class I was taught to constantly be looking in different directions. A great many Polish drivers keep their gaze glued straight ahead of them. A UFO could start cruising alongside them and they’d never know.
I’ve been utterly terrified as a passanger in cars driven by Polish drivers. But in the interest of fairness I should also mention there are some good Polish drivers that don’t make me wonder what hospital I’m going to wake up in (as a best case scenario).
Best drivers: Norwegians. A healthy dose of heavy-handed and harsh penalties for violating their already quite low speed limits …combined with some good, old-fashioned courtesy has apparently made them the nicest drivers.
I haven’t been everywhere, but I have been many places… and my time spent driving in Norway was the most relaxing. It did take quite awhile to get to and from where I was going but it’s a beautiful country, so…
BTDT, a car driver for a year, a pedestrian for decades, who nearly lost (the meaning of) life in a car accident 10 years ago, I generally agree with Michael above. (But Michael, re looking around, you know what the country with the highest ratio road signs/m2 is? I imagine I’d find the luxury of looking around and admiring landscapes of a US desert — but perhaps not while Polish downtown zigazgging through the systems of holes surprisingly known as ‘roads’.)
Then, let me generalize more: it’s historically genetic that Poles are not subservient to systems of law. Laws have often been hostile things, you know: Russian / German announcements, regime’s requirements. Maybe a traffic code’s viewed as a part of the system, deep in the subconscious, to be opposed / teased / gamed?
When there are no stated laws, there is survival of the biggest:
= a pedestrian will yield to a passenger car
= a passenger car will yield to a bus
= a bus will yield to a sixteen wheeler
= a sixteen wheeler will yield to a tank
= a tank will yield to a train [and so on]
Note: the pedestrian, when on the bus, suddenly has more rights than small car drivers.
PS To put in some humour (?), let’s hope that Poles will keep following the US way of life, and then, that our doctors willl emigrate to the UK, as will our teens (or there will be few teens, if demography sinks), and our lawyers will use their private jet planes.
You have misinterpreted the roadsign. It is advertising a ‘highway dance’ (‘wypadki’ as they are called in Polish). 20 or 30 cars (mostly rusty Polonezy) turn up in the middle of a field, form a circle, and are left with their radios tuned to the same station and their headlights on. People dance around within this circle. A popular form of rural amusement.
Michael: :D
If only it were true.
[...] for some answers to “is the T-14 road sign international or locally Polish” or “can people drive” (British people, by definition, too leftist, can’t), I found this site. Yeah, [...]
great article and totally true which is actually quite embarassing to admit to foreigners but hey, the truth must be told
…everyone I know think of himself as best driver with excepitional skills… I have never met anyone who would consider himself as not such a good driver…..The biggest problem though is not the speed I guess but the total lack of good manners on the road… totally disrespectful for pedstrians and cyclist and other drivers…. seems there is a rule that if you have a nice, big expensive car yoo can be a total tosser and that’s totally acceptable
anna: He he, thanks. No need to admit it, we have seen with our own eyes! Still, I think the Italians and the Greeks are way ahead of you, so no need to be too embarrassed :)
In my experience it’s universally true that the people who proclaim themselves to be great drivers are actually disasters waiting to happen and people who claim to be poor drivers are the safest on the roads.
This sign doesn’t remind you not to hit people. It says, that you’re getting close to the place, where lot of accidents happened in the past, so you should have been more careful. And it’s way better, than signs, which just says, that you can’t go faster than xx kmph, because in case of “wypadki” sign you know, that it doesn’t stay here, because someone think, that this can be dangerous place – it stays here, because this place IS really dangerous.
xerathin: I wish I had your faith. But ok, I was only joking… kind of.
i moved to america 8 years ago. and wow-if you americans think that polish people are bad drivers then i feel sorry for you because you can’t even see yourselves on the road. at least poles are nice to each other on the road. for example. in poland, if a person needs to merge into a busy lane, someone will let them without a problem and be thanked for it. in america, people will rarely let you go into their lane and will instead speed up to block the empty space. and if on occasion they do let them merge, they will never get a simple thank you. it’s easy to criticize other nationalities but look at the driving of your fellow americans. i seriously.
guest: I’m not American.
[...] They don’t give a misspellt piece of cutlery (was it “fork“?). [...]
Polish drivers watched to many F1 races in their life. That’s all. They’re reckless drivers but not that bad. Go somewhere east from Poland. If you’d use your trafficators in Ukrain or Rusia you’d look like idiots or show-offs to the natives. I also heared a LOT of bad things about Italian drivers.
And if anybody thinks that Poles can’t drive try going 100 in high traffic, cutting corners and useing strange shortcuts :)
oh my god. Polish people can drive u fag! How can u say that!! Poland’s not the country with the most car accidents, last time i checked that was america
Anna,
Of course the USA has more accidents, there are more people.
Have a look at this. http://www.driveandstayalive.com/info%20section/statistics/stats-multicountry-percapita-2004.htm
Ok, it’s from 2004 but if you compare the number of people in a country with the number of accidents they have, you’ll see just how bad Poland is.
Fact: Polish roads are very dangerous when compared with other countries.
Now I know that the roads in Poland are not conducive to safe driving, but you can draw your own conclusions what that says about the standard of driving in Poland.
In my opinion there are two major hurdles for people (not just the Polish) to get over to become good drivers:
1. Get the ego out of driving – It’s not all about “me” but a team game. If we all drive in a manor where we think of other road users and not ourselves, we’ll all get where we’re going with less chance of a mishap.
2. Accept the truth. You (and me) are not the best drivers in the world. At best, most of us are average drivers and need to accept it and drive accordingly.
Rant over
Chris
“Do you really need a sign reminding you NOT to drive into people?”
I hope it`s a joke, cuz otherwise I have to tell you that the sign says “this is the place where many accidents happened, so be careful”
I think Poles are bad drivers but not the worst. I`m also a bit worried about cursing too. Hopefully most drivers swear in their cars without opening the window(s).
Anyway, crossing the road is taking your life in your hands regardless of the fact it`s Poland or UK or somewhere else.
P.S. Sorry for my bad English.
Poles are by far the the most aggressive drivers in Europe. Having lived in Berlin, Split, Prague, Budapest, and Wroclaw, I can definately say that the drivers in Poland are the most disrespectful and dangerous in all of Europe. Stop at a crosswalk? Only if you take the leap of faith. Passing on those narrow tree lined highways of death through blind corners. “At least we’re not as bad as the Ukrainians” doesn’t cut it.
Greetings from a soon-to-be corpse.
While I agree with your observations about the recklessness and aggressive attitude of Polish drivers, after living in the UK for 5 months I can say British drivers are just as bad. And I don’t mean Poles living in the UK :)
Check the accident rates and I think you will discover so are so very very wrong
OK, this comment is waay old, but here is my 5 cents. I don’t know whether other countries are even worse, but Poles are baaaad at driving.
“And if anybody thinks that Poles can’t drive try going 100 in high traffic, cutting corners and useing strange shortcuts :)” is a case in point: going 100 in high traffic is bad driving. Poles seem to double the speed limit and add a a bit extra on top.
And for the Guest – I am a Pole, not an American. Just that I lived out of Poland and got unused to the driving habits. In Australia, the _yearly_ road toll for the country is about 300. And people tend to drive from one to two hours daily, at least a quarter of this on a highway (daily commute to work in the city is in the range of half to an hour one way). What is a road toll for an average weekend in Poland? I rest my case. Oh, and Australians are allowed a few beers before getting in a car (legal alcohol limit = .05, which means two light beers/glasses of wine in the first hour, and then one in each of the following hours). Doesn’t seem to matter.
Sorry, this is a rant, but I had a recent experience of both being driven and being a pedestrian in Poland, and still can’t get over it. I made a point of not driving myself and do not plan to do so in the future.
polish are F1 drivers :)
the worst thing is that the want to change the LANE there where they can not ( just before the traffic lights ) .
something similar to italian way , but with the difference : without sense of what they are doing, so in a very RUDE way
i know you will not accept what i am writing, but it is the true :)
Hell, I tried driving in Italy – Firenze, I must say that Warsaw at her “finest” is just a bloody calm country hole in the ground comparing to what’s happening at the morning peak in Firenze, not mentioning the bikes plaque. I felt a huge relieve when I passed the Austrian border seeing less and less Italian plates… with all the respect to Italian cuisine and Chianti wine! :)
is not fine to criticise so much poland and polish people,
the true fact is , that this country is changing much more faster than the mentality of the people can, but also the mentality is changing in a rythm, that is not known for us from WESTERN countries
do you agree on that ?
Being polish whole my life and living here and there I’ve seen a lot and I can put it this way: “polish drivers are OCCASIONALLY rude, but they aren’t a bad drivers”. This of course includes me (because I’m polish), but fortunately my rudeness happens OCCASIONALLY.
Also I have been in Norway some time ago and I must admit, I felt way much safer there on a pedestrian crossing then here in my homeland.
Of course I encourage all you people who thinks that polish way of driving is insane simply go to Italy ;)
Cheers
Poles hate each other and we like to think that our cars are some sort of a Cruise missiles . I wish i had a tank
This is so very true. Especially the bit about Polish drivers suddenly becoming enormously more important than everybody else as soon as they step into a car.
And heaven help you if said car is an SUV.
I have to say that after living in Poland for 9 years that Polish drivers are the WORST I have ever seen in Europe.
I have driven across Europe many times (including Italy, Paris and other stereotypically bad driving hotspots) and have never felt so unsafe as in Poland.
My father rented a car here on a visit from the UK and said he would never drive in Poland again, as he had never been so terrified in his life. Driving to Zakopane he described as the single scariest event in his life as so many drivers were overtaking into oncoming traffic and then driving at him, so that he had to nearly swerve OFF the road to avoid an accident. I was in the car with him and have never seen him so shaken by driving!! He also has extensive experience of driving in many different countries.
I don’t drive very often here as I don’t want to die just yet! It seems that the more expensive, bigger and shiny the car is the (even) more aggressive the drivers are. I have been hit on a zebra crossing here, as a pedestrian, when I was almost on the other side and very little was done about it. I have been in 3 car accidents (I wasn’t driving the car) in Poland, one involving 4 vehicles because in the middle of winter, in black ice people didn’t slow down and were driving unbelievably close to the car in front.
Very few drivers stop at zebra crosses, and a Polish friend of mine who had lived in Germany for a while, told me he was scared of stopping at zebra crossings (as he did in Germany) as he was worried that the car behind him would overtake him and kill the pedestrian crossing the road in front of him!!
Basically (as mentioned in an earlier post) the bigger the vehicle, the more “get the k***va out of my way” is the norm.
I once saw in Krakow an old lady get hit on a zebra crossing, and hardly anyone appeared to look shocked at this. The lady actually limped away (I kid you not) and the driver looked quickly about, and jumped into his car, and drove off!! I was stunned to say the least…….
Polish friends of mine who are lovely people, become absolute maniacs when they get into a car. So aggressive and impatient, wheeling the car left and right whilst driving 1 metre behind the car in front out of impatience, because the car in front is not driving 3 times over the speed limit in the middle of a city. In the UK I had never before seen a car get overtaken in a small street in the middle of a city. just to get 1 car length further up the road! Nightmare.
And can anyone tell me what a red light is for in Poland? I believe it is just a suggestion to stop, a possible course of action, rather than an absolute “you must stop”!! I think the Polish government could save money on white paint by having no zebra crossings (as no one stops at them) and on traffic lights (as they are generally ignored) and on having white lines between lanes (as people invariably lane chop at all times just to get a tiny bit further up the road) Also indicators in Polish cars are a waste of plastic as they are so rarely used.
Finally (out of breathe from ranting) to compare Polish driving to being better than the Ukraine and Russia is really quite worrying don’t you think? Maybe? Just a little bit?
“Anyway, crossing the road is taking your life in your hands regardless of the fact it`s Poland or UK or somewhere else.”
I say to this comment that most UK drivers actually stop at zebra crossings because a) it’s polite and considerate, and b) it’s the law!! It is also the law in Poland, but it is generally ignored and rarely enforced.
And to Jan Rychter, you are So right about SUV’s!!!!
Well folks, this has been a rant about Polish driving and nothing else about Poland or Polish people, so please don’t disappoint me by ranting that I should leave Poland or I am anti Polish, as I have heard this all too many times. ;-P
“……but also the mentality is changing in a rythm, that is not known for us from WESTERN countries
do you agree on that ?”
Did the west MAKE you?
Polish people drive like children who have just learned how to ride a bike. It amazes me DAILY how horrible (and as inferred earlier) childishly these people drive. I actually get a laugh out of it….until, that is, i have to risk my life to cross the street.