Why do poles drink & drive?

I'm glad you are working on this Laura - it sounds like a great initative.

I think wildrover has hit the nail on the head - drunk driving does not carry the same social stigma here in Poland as it does in the UK. People seem to be more concerned with being fined or losing their licenses (now that it's becoming more difficult to bribe the police) than causing a death. And in the countryside, your chances of being caught are pretty small to start with. If the people you are working with come from rural areas, they might simply be used to getting away with it.

Also, I've lost count of the number of times that my Polish friends tell stories of the foreign guest who got blind drunk at a wedding because he/she 'didn't know how to drink'. It's not unusual to drink 0.5l or more of vodka at one long sitting but it's usually with a meal (or 3 if it's a wedding) or some food to soak it up.

as to D&D it isnt acceptable thing in Poland if I sat in car being drunk members of my family would call the Police ... just it is much better to lost driving licence than kill sb and sit about 10 years in prison ... and I m 100% sure they woud try to stop me and next called the police ...

another small anecdotal observation

i went to a polish wedding this summer - the wedding driver, employed to ferry guests backwards and forwards, was off his face

whether drink is involved or not, the bottomline is that poland is fully of extremely bad drivers.... and endless bunches of flowers at the side of roads

Drove from Krakow to the southeast region and around about last yearand didn't feel nervey at all. I found the driving in general pretty good, the hardest parts being to try and get into the cities and getting out again. Pretty much the same as any English city, it seems worse when you'r strange to the area.

Doing it again end of the month, got a hire car for two week doing west to east and back again. Got my St. Christopher to dangle off the mirror. :o)

In defence of Polish drivers i have to say that i don,t find them to be bad drivers , quite the opposite...As a motorcycle rider i have to say that so far i havent had any scarey near misses from looney car drivers as i did back in the UK...I think the high death rate in Poland is due to several factors...First the narrow roads , with trees close to the road , second , the Polish reluctance to wear a seat belt , and yes the fact that drinking and driving does seem to be more acceptable here...I don,t think the Polish drivers are worse than English drivers , but when they do have an accident they are more likely to die....Drive carefully folks...I like meeting Polish people , but i would rather it wasn,t head on in an accident....

Not so. Most deaths on Polish roads are in fact pedestrians. 75%. That's why we have new roads around villages and new and better crossing points.
Also, I don't see how you can blame a tree at the side of the road for causing an accident.

I didn,t actually say the trees were causing the accidents , only that its one of the causes of death in an accident.....You may be right about most deaths being pedestrians , but we are talking here about drinking and driving , a pedestrian is not a driver , unless he gets in a car......

no doubt true... but do these pedestrians simply drop down dead or are they killed by reckless drivers



perhaps this should read when they do have an accident they are more likely to kill a pedestrian



wtf are you talking bout?

i am talking about my own personal experiances , which stupid as they may seem to others , i am an expert in...

it is irresponsible of you to suggest that polish drivers are in the same league as english drivers, regardless of your own personal experiences which i doubt you are being entirely truthful about

You mean you think that lots of Polish drivers have almost killed or maimed me , but i don,t mention it in case i upset anybody...Possible , but not everso likely is it...OK..you sussed me out , actually i am recovering from having my legs amputated , after being injured by a crazy Polish driver , but don,t tell anyone , i want to keep it quiet...

patronisation will only get you called a kunt

no worse than being called a liar...All i did was state my own personal experiances of many thousands of miles of driving in Poland....Unless you have had a secret camera following me around , you can,t possibly know if my statement is true or not , but you decided for your own reasons to say i am lying about it...If you think i am lying then thats fine , but why did you need to tell me this , it does not matter , its not important...don,t let it upset you , its just my words , not aimed at you ...If i could prevent everything i say being seen by you then i would , but i cannot .....

im aware that its not aimed at me - my issue is with the message you give that there is nothing wrong with the driving in poland

irresponsible



laugh and joke about it by all means but when its a little closer to home its not quite so funny

Look Bubba , in the past i have read many of your posts , and thought you came across as an ok kind of guy , i really don,t know what i said that caused you to get so uppity with me....I was only saying that my experiance of Polish drivers has not been a bad one....Maybe i have just been lucky , but i honestly have had far fewer near misses in Poland than i did in the UK...Maybe all the lunatics got killed before i got here , i really can,t say , but i can only give an opinion based on my experiance , and i have no reason to lie about that , what would be the point..?? It may be my first meeting with a bad Polish driver will be my last if i am Riding my Harley....Believe me , i would love to stick up for my Fellow English drivers , but eight years as a motorcycle courier gave me a great chance to experiance the worst of English driving....My Polish friends do tell me that Polish drivers are crazy , but lucky me just ain,t bumped into them yet....Now driving in Russia...a whole different story.....Sorry if i upset you buddy , lets call a truce eh...?

I think in all honesty wildrover you have been either a very lucky man or (and no disrespect here), driving around with blinkers on.

In their defence it's not entirely there fault, it's the road system here with that two meter side track, which causes so much confusion when people are overtaking as they do not move over and consequently the overtaking driver plays Russian roulette with the oncoming driver.
I think there is another reason as well that was told to me by a Polish friend; and he said that Poland has not got a historical driving culture. Maybe it is the reason, maybe it is not, but I have to disagree with you when you say “I don’t think the Polish drivers are worse than English drivers”

WR, like you i have driven thousands of kms in poland although the majority of them have been limited to one part of the country

everytime i get in the car i know i am going to see driving that shocks me, im going to see crashed cars, bunches of flowers by the road, dead animals even dead people - guarenteed

english driving is by no means perfect, but through constant campaigns - tuffty's road awarness, dont drink and DrIvE, click clunk, awareness of motorcyclists, mobile phone usage restrictions - driving standards have been/are being raised and awareness of road saftey issues is increasing

poland's road safety awareness [and lets face it - health and safety in general] is similar to how the uk's was decades ago and many more people are being maimed and killed as a result.

this both angers and upsets me.

polish public awareness and responsibility needs to be raised, not only through campaigns similar to the ones the uk has used over the past 25 odd years but also through forums like this, that things need to change and the sooner the better

people might argue that how the polish drive in their own country is up to them, but as statistics are proving, they are now exporting their low level of standards to other countries, such as the uk, and more innocent peole are dying as a result.

i get 'uppity' when the message is given out that there is nothing wrong with polish driving... and i will continue to do so whenever i encounter this view. somebody might read my rantings - take note - drive a little more carefully and not kill somebody as a result

it does indeed sound as though you have been lucky with your own experiences on the roads of poland, especially when out on the harley. may you and those around you continue to be so lucky

and thanks for the apology - not needed but appreciated and happy to call a truce

important point



another important point - i see so many young drivers driving powerful cars that they are not experienced to drive and its normally these drivers who are the ones driving with wanton disregard to their own, and other road users saftey

Jeez , now that would get me killed...bikers usually develop eyes in the back of their head , those that don,t usually don,t last long...

frikin lunatics,worse than your average boy racer here in the UK is my opinion from my experiances. I have seen shunts and bumps in London,in Warsaw,in 10 days I saw more dead people than I have in 10 years over here.Stupid speeds driven in the city and reckless disregard for anyone outside the car.
Dont blame roads,you drive to suit the conditions.

I have seen a lot of "cultural" english tourists in Poland, and I know why there is ban for english customers in good clubs in Poland ... so just f*ck off ... there is no ban for France, Italian, Spanish or German tourists but only for "cultural" english who come in the club and pi ss on the table or wank their selves on the street becuse they think it is funy ...

er,lukasz,Im talking,as is everyone else in this thread about drivers(you rascist little pixie) not about arseholes in pubs.And btw,Im not english so why should I care what they get upto?

Why do you consider me racist ? I m sure that if people mentioned by me were brought up in other country they would behave in different way.

no they wouldnt,inbread shmucks are inbread shmucks no matter which country they are from.
There are plenty of english who are so far from your stereotype of drunken bums but you will tar all the english as the same,ergo you are rascist,just as I would be if I said all Poles had a tendency to be selfpitying whingers,some are but not the majority.
I should have said you are being rascist,not you are rascist per se, my apologies.

Poles drink and drive. Bc they can Multitask.. lol

Laura

I could see a lot of hugely hypocritical statements above and I am far from surprised. If you read Michael Palin's new book on his recent travels, "New Europe", you will notice what Ilie Nastace, the famous Romanian tennis player, says about his fellow Romanians when asked by Michael what describes them best. "Cheating, lying..." was Nastace's answer. This is not an attack on eastern Europeans - I am myself an Eastern European - not Polish but coming from a country near Poland and I understand the issues.

The behaviour of Polish drivers in the UK is not an exception. You only need to check the stats in, say, Germany and you will see that Germans have exactly the same problem. The only difference between the UK and Germany is that Germans have had the Poles as "gastarbeiters" for decades so they know that the only way to deal with it is to enforce the law strictly and penalise them appropriately. If you asked a Pole what he thought of Germany, they would call it a "police state" but the fact is that the best way to make people behave is to hit their pockets.

Now, on the drink-driving issue, the problem is that the Poles (as well as Lithuanians, Estonians, Romanians, Bulgarians and the rest of the lot) are coming from the "cold". I am referring to former communist societies where people could get away with anything if they paid the right amount to the right person. As you know, the rule of law did not exist in those countries and the laws and regulations (whatever they were) were applied by the ruling elite in any way it suited them. If you were high up in the nomenklature or knew someone high up, you could get away with murder. People disrespected the law and as communism collapsed, things got even worse. Do not believe those who tell you that Polish children are thought to be responsible at school, etc., etc. If anything, during the last 70-80 years their society taught them to be irresponsible. So the way Poles behave in the UK is the way they would behave back home, if not worse, because they feel more "incognito" in a foreign country. If you went anywhere in Eastern Europe and observed their peoples' driving habits (drink driving, no seatbelts, just like Brits used to be 30 years ago), you would understand everything. Easter Europeans may all have mobile phones and satelite/cable TV now but in many respects they are at least 20-30 years behind "old" Europe. Add to that a bit of arrogance (which they have in abundance) and you get the picture.

Specifically on the Poles' excuses about not knowing the UK rules, this is bulshit, an excuse and poor pretence. I mean, the drink limit in Poland is 20mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood (compared to 80mg in the UK). If they only followed their own (stricter) rules, they would never drink drive, would they?!!! And it does not take that long to learn a few simple rules of life here, after all. In my experience, Brits are extremely tolerant and are always guided by nothing more than good common sense, so what is so difficult about behaving like a normal, civilised person?

On the fact that our police forces have had to spend more than £1 million in the past year on interpreters because Poles (and other Eastearn Europeans) could not speak English, this is again rubbish. Whenever they get in trouble with police, they like to pretend that they do not speak English in the hope (may be correctly so) that they would get away because our police would not bother. They are just abusing the decent nature of this country's inhabitants, that is all, and again, I am saying this as an Eastern European who was born and bred in that part of the world and knows these people's mentality very well.

I can carry on until tomorrow but there will be no point. All you need to do is start applying the old maxim that ignorance of the law is not an excuse, do not provide them with interpreters paid for by the taxpayers (after all, if they came over here, it is their own responsibility to learn the local language), hit their pockets hard and they will "learn" the rules very, very quickly...

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I wasn't born there but I was there long enough to know you're right.If I say it ,I'm anti Eastern European(Bollocks,my wife,sons and many of my closets friend are E.European)
If you say it doesn't get attacked as much.Thankyou for being straight, you'll surely get caned for it.

Can you please rewrite this in English as it is awful and very difficult to understand!!!

So do you suggest that Poland was communist before WW2? A very novel point of view, if I may say so.

As for Polish driving and Polish drink-driving: road accidents happen a lot in Poland because of the many narrow, potholed roads still around, and because a lot of country dwellers insist on walking / cycling down motorways dressed in black, gray, and other dark colours just as dusk is falling. I have personally missed a few by virtually centimeters. It's no fun! Plus, as in every country, young people get high on alcohol and drugs, and then proceed to drive their friends home from night clubs or parties.
Polish drink-driving in the UK: as someone mentioned above, when you go abroad, you don't really feel that this new country is "for real" - because your home country is the only real one, right? You would especially tend to feel this way if your education wasn't the greatest, and let's face it - lots of immigrants come from a working-class background. Thus, you tend to disregard the rules, firstly because they are written in a language you don't bother to understand, and secondly because you are "abroad" - i.e., in never-never land. You came here for the freedom of not being recognized, for the money and the irresponsibility (as opposed to being a REAL citizen back home). I think this attitude is sh*t but I know quite a lot of people who actually feel this way.
On the other hand, this is not a typically Polish thing, as most people tend to fall for this fallacy (like the British chav who gratified himself in a public fountain in Bratislava some time ago - no way he'd have done that in his home town, or at least I hope so). Generally speaking, unless you are a seasoned and sensitive traveller, living abroad will always be associated with having less overall responsibility, not more.