Registration of right hand drive cars in Poland - possible?

Hello forum members, I remember a few years ago It was not possible to register a right hand drive in poland. However I heard of a guy that was bringing the case to court. I have been unable to find out if he was successful or is it still the case you can not register a right hand drive in poland. I would be grateful for any information.

He was successful...BUT...the Polish government reversed the ruling....

Currently under review by EU tribunal, who have warned PL that they will face fines if they do not comply with the rest of the EU.

Still not legal.

But on the other hand - do people really want Polish drivers driving RHD vehicles? Of course, they'll snap them up by the thousands because of how much cheaper they are - and given the driving of the average dickhead "Pawel" (thank you, Harry) on roads completely unsuitable for driving fast - who wants it?

It's clearly obvious that the average "superb" Polish driver isn't going to be so lame as to ask his wife if the road is clear ahead or not, he'll just swing out and hope for the best.

They do anyway. They just don't register them here. Which means that those vehicles are not legal (unless they're taken back to UK for the annual MOT) and hence are not insured.


Are British cars cheaper? I was under the impression that better value can be had in Germany or Holland.


You think that they look before pulling out and can correctly judge the distance and care whether they correctly judge the distance? You haven't driven much in Poland!

There's quite a few of them kicking about with no tax disc on show, so it's pretty obvious that they're not legal.


As far as I can tell, yes - the German prices are bumped up a bit because of Poles nearby buying everything in sight. I suppose it makes a change from stealing them ;)


They couldn't care less is my opinion. I can almost, almost understand it when they're by themselves, but when you see them with children in the car - well, it tells you a lot about the mentality!

Who often aren't wearing seat belts....

Standing on the seats seems to be a popular pastime of theirs as well.

No doubt there'll be the usual spike in accidents and deaths this weekend, which always strikes me as very ironic...

Merged:Registration of Right-hand Drive vehicles in Poland

Does anyone know what is the latest news regarding Poland's refusal to register RHD vehicles and the case the EU are taking to the European Court?

Geoff

I could say dream on....but that would be uninformative and abrupt.....so I,ll give my view on it......not going to happen for as long as Poland can hold it off....and it looks like they will get their way for a long time. Poland is a good EU country and sings the praises of the EU up, down, left and right, even unto the heavens..... so that means that a little lee way is given to Poland throughout this time of crisis.....wait until all is good and rosy with the Euro and the EU in general, then they will get back to pushing Poland to allow RHD cars. I won,t go into the details of why it would be bad for Poland to allow RHD here because its been discussed before..although that ugly demon that resides inside 90% of Poles who get behind the wheel and its reason for being so has never really been looked into...for shame!.

Its crazy i can,t register my English car in Poland... I have no trouble at all to register it and insure it in Moscow....

Wildrover...it,s not crazy...there are some sound reasons (Polish reasons) why not.......for one the 'New car sales industry' in Poland is not very healthy and a huge influx of cheap RHD cars from UK will kill it stone dead. The second has been discussed here so many times and it is this strange madness that comes over some Poles the moment they get behind the wheel of a car.....if you look at it from the point of view of the government they are already acutely embarrassed by the road deaths/ maiming and carnage figures of Polands roads. (people jump on the throats of anyone on this forum who dares to liken Poland to a third world country but none of them can dispute that the road deaths/maiming figures are definitley third world!!!) They have been warned by the EU that they must bring down the figures to a civilised level, hence the huge influx of speed cameras, Police checks etc..(I,m sure the only way they will really cure this problem is to take away cars from speeders/drink drivers and crush the cars). So the upshot of this is that they will do their best to hold off having large amounts of RHD cars on the road which can only add to the carnage and general mayhem. They have to appease the EU in one way and hold them at bay in another way????? EU style madness!!!

its not gonna happen basically, if it does im starting a motor trade export business pronto.

If it does happen can you imagine how many RHD cars would flood the Polish market within months? and how many more deaths it would cause.

It should be the same across the whole of europe, the argument about cheap rhd cars from uk does not stand up because poles buy cheap accident damaged cars from all over europe then bodge them together and they end up on polish roads! how safe is that?

It's safer than letting Pawel the racist meathead drive like he normally does in a RHD car.

instead they allow dealers to buy damaged cars from all of europe and put them back on the road an mot in the uk takes over one hour in poland it takes 5-10mins.as to the polish car market the prices for 2nd cars are far too high once you turn on the key and drive a new car the car is secound hand but the dealers try to sell it as new

how would a polish copper know that you and your rhd car have been in poland for more than 6 months?

what is this 6 month rule? - is it 5 months 28 days ... drive to germany ,,, back in to poland a couple of days later and you are good for another 6 months?

or is it - total useage of rhd car in poland maximum 6 months in the year - PERIOD

do they have cameras on every road which is on the polish border - and which reads uk/ rhd cars as they come in?

id be loathe to cough up something like double the price for what id need to pay - were i paying in the uk...

case in point - id like to buy a skoda ocatavia desiel - 05 plate ,,, 90,000 miles rhd - uk price apx £2000,, polish price ,, i wouldnt mind betting something like £3500

insurance is a bit of a bummer - but i found a uk company whos insurance for eu cover lasts a full 365 days - i.e no limit ,, no 60 days/90 days outside the uk.

Depends how determined they are. For instance, a simple check of your bank account would certainly do that.


In general, it will be six months primary residence.


They don't need to. If they have a suspicion that the car is being used illegally, they can simply impound it pending investigation - a quick check of your bank account will soon establish the primary residency criteria.

However, in practice, you're going to find that the police don't give a monkeys unless you give them reason to be.

as long as you go back for mot and it has uk tax then you can drive it but the police will stop you as so many uk cars have no tax and ticket I saw a rhd car on polish plates a few weeks back in krakow but it was a hackney cab i spoke to the driver he told me it falls under different laws as there is no lhd version they have to register it.

Apparently people will soon be able to register RHD cars in Poland. I dread to think what effect that will have on road safety here.


Full article here: blogs.ft/beyond-brics/2013/11/08/poland-driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road/#axzz2kXKttbwr (requires registration).

A couple of interesting facts from the rest of the article:
- in 2012 646,000 used cars were imported to Poland;
- the average Polish car is slightly more than 16 years old;
- 3,520 people were killed on Polish roads in 2012;
- Poland saw 93 road fatalities per million people, which makes it the third worst place in the EU for population-adjusted road deaths.

Given the way that some Poles drive, I fear that hundreds of thousands of RHD cars on Polish roads could well see Poland dropping to the very bottom of the EU league table when it comes to road deaths.

I absolutely agree. The downright suicidal behaviour of some drivers will only get worse if they're able to import ridiculously cheap (by Polish standards) RHD cars - there are still plenty of 10-15 year old BMW's out there in great condition in the UK, and Poles will snap them up once they can register them.

This is hardly going to get the go ahead is it?

Surely whatever Minister is is charge of road safety won't allow it.

It might, it depends how Poland reacts. Plenty of EU countries just ignore what laws they feel like ignoring, after all.


I really, really hope so. Better to pay a few million Euro in fines than to allow Pawel and his racist dickhead mates behind the wheel of RHD cars.

Surely there'll be some workaround;
you can register a RHD, but you must change it to a LHD, isn't that what's already in place?

That's what the complaint was about - in theory, you can register an RHD. The problem is that the technical check regulations treat an RHD as an instant fail, so you are obliged to convert it to LHD before it can pass the check.

It was my understanding that if you can persuade a bent garage owner to give you a pass for the RHD, then you can register it just fine.

I wonder if the notion that a RHD cars would be disastrous is slighly misplaced. There are plenty of good drivers in Poland that don't deserve to be penalized because of inefficient driving standards.

At the end of the day this boils down to a lack of respect for the law, a very confusing high way code, a stupid points system, appalling road markings, a lack of education and an culture of victim blaming on the roads. It's *never* the drivers fault is it?

I doubt additional RHDs would add to increased road deaths any more than cheap LHD cars would.

Have you spent much time driving RHD cars on the wrong side of the road? I spent a year in Poland with a UK car: overtaking is not easy. One of the problems is that the main way to check before overtaking when is to pull to the right and look up the inside of the vehicle you want to overtake before pulling left into the other lane to overtake; however, a lot of Polish drivers will assume that you're pulling over to let them pass and thus fill the space you are about to move into when you pull out to the left to overtake.

And then there's the fact that a lot of Polish drivers apparently find it very hard to look properly before overtaking when they are driving LHD cars, so God only know how hard they'll bother when driving an RHD car.

Ture, but at least thats an improvement on the previous years.

I haven't driven but my boyfriend did. I drove in other European countries RHD but just did not dare in Poland, now we have a LHD and I still do not dare! Boyfriend has 15 years driving experience so is more confident then me. He didn't have a problem at all with the overtaking (as all you really need to do is be sensible, keep distance etc.). If he couldn't pull a safe manovre he simply would wait.

I'm aware how it should work, not only having done it myself but because I was driven to Hungary every summer with mum and dad.

The problem in Poland always has been other drivers... squeezing in, cutting up, tailgateing and general impatience and aggression.

We had a UK registered car here for the best part of a year before we had to drive back to the UK to sell it on account of not being able to insure it. We now have a LHD. As I said I don't drive it (too scared) but the BF complains about the exact same stuff he did when we had the RHD.

Do we feel any safer for having an LHD? Not really.

Refusal to register RHD seems to continue: londynek.net/wiadomosci/Poland+again+refuses+RHD+cars+wiadomosci+news,/wiadomosci/en/article?jdnews_id=19556