Over the Christmas weekend, police across Poland caught less drunk drivers, with fewer accidents and deaths noted than in previous years.
From Christmas Eve until the end of Boxing Day, Sunday, police recorded 125 accidents, Inspector Grazyna Puchalska from the Warsaw Police Headquarters told Polish Radio.
The number of accidents is a marked drop on the average amount of accidents during a working day, when on average 150 accidents take place.
Over the Christmas period, the death toll amounted to 10, with 176 injured. Police stopped a total of 589 drunk drivers over the three-day period, also less than the daily average.
During the Christmas long weekend, over 10,000 policemen patrolled Polish roads in unmarked vehicles equipped with video cameras. Inspector Puchalska adds that police helicopters were also held on standby during the weekend.
The lower death and accident statistics this year were chiefly caused by the fact that there was less traffic on the roads this Christmas, Puchalska told Polish Radio, adding that drivers were cautious because of the wintry weather.
Polish need for speed
Meanwhile, from 31 December a new law comes into force which will allow motorists to drive 10km/h faster on motorways and expressways. The new limits mean that on motorways drivers can speed up to 140 km/h, with expressways obtaining a speed limit of 120 km/h.
However, the new law also envisages that when clocking speeding motorists, police have to take into account driver error of 10 km/h, meaning drivers across Poland can in reality race up to 150 km/h on motorways and 130 km/h on expressways.
The limits will become the highest in the European Union. Although German motorways technically have no speed limit, with a “recommended” limit of 130 km/h, over half of the high-speed network in Poland’s western neighbour is limited to 120 km/h or less.
Poland has just over 900 km of motorways, with a little over 600 km of expressways. In 2008, 78 people per million died in road accidents across the EU. In Poland that number amounted to 143 per million in the same year.
During a conference in the Polish Senate in November, road safety experts from the UK, Sweden, and Holland asked the Polish authorities how they want to reduce the number of accidents with the passing of the new traffic bill. No answer was given. (jb)
Source: IAR/Gazeta Wyborcza