Roads in Poland - split from Polish divesites

[Marek K]

C'mon Marek
I have told you many times - it's 2,5 hours drive to Olsztyn - the centre of Mazurian Lakes area. And there - plenty of lakes around to dive in.
Mania

But to get to Olsztyn, you have to drive up Highway 7. One of the guys on my office who travels regularly up to Gdynia calls it the "highway of death"... and I personally know exactly why...

I thought you and I had talked mostly about driving up to like Lake Hańcza... wasn't that area where the guys at Scuba Service drive up to? Or am I confused? Again?

--Marek

 

[mania]

Marek
From that point of view every road in Poland is a "highway of death"
And honestly it's total ********
Hancza is much farther - it's 4- 5 hours drive from Warsaw. And much worse road in fact.
This is why most weekends I go to Olsztyn and Mazury. And suprisingly I'm still alive.
Mania

 

[Marek K]

From that point of view every road in Poland is a "highway of death"
And honestly it's total ********

(Counting the number of asterisks.....)

Hey!! :mad1:

Hancza is much farther - it's 4- 5 hours drive from Warsaw. And much worse road in fact.

It's not the quality of the road... it's the traffic density; and (mostly) the behavior of the drivers on the road, based on how it's laid out and where it's going.

On the "normal" two-lane highways, like those heading up into the northeast, traffic is lighter and pretty responsible.

But on Highway 7... for those that don't know, it's basically a two-lane highway with very wide shoulders. It's expected -- and more-or-less legal -- for slower vehicles to pull over and drive on the shoulder to let faster traffic pass.

Link that with the spectrum of vehicles traveling between Warsaw and Gdańsk/Gdynia... from teeny Fiat 126's putting along (how do they still keep those things going?), through bumper-to-bumper lumbering slow tractor/trailer combinations, through "normal" cars, to millionaires speeding along in their 7-series BMW's expecting everyone -- going in both directions -- to immediately and submissively get out of their way. It's a non-stop testosterone-saturated game of chicken along that center dividing line.

Am I wrong? I wouldn't be surprised if a large proportion of Poland's extremely high highway death rate is attibutable to Highway 7.

I suppose I could take Highway 61/57 through Pułtusk to Olsztyn. But I like to take the fastest route too! :browsmile

You need to take us up there some weekend this summer.

--Marek

 

[mania]

Marek
Sorry but sometimes such comments really drive me crazy.
Guys, I'm living here, driving car around this country and according to your friend I should have beed dead long time ago.
Maybe he is not a goor driver?
Next thing I will hear is that if you drink tap water in Poland you will die.
And you - living here - are reapeting all this?


You have never ever driven the road to Bialystok (which means to Hancza). Because this is a major transit road between West and Russia. So the number of tracks there is not seen on any other road (except road from Poznan).

The so-called "gdanska" is nothing comparing to this one. And if you are a good driver it's no problem at all.
In fact the highest accident rate is in Katowicka road...
OK our road are not very good, some people drive like crazy but it's not worse that in many other postcommunistic countries. And drivers are really less crazy than in Italy - Marek have you driven a car there?

Mania

 

[Marek K]

Mania moja droga (hey, that's a pun!)--

I'm not "repeating" anything -- I'm basing it on personal experience.

I've driven both Highway 7 to the northwest, and the Katowicka highway down south. Of the two, I would much rather drive the Katowicka. It's a proper 4-lane divided (almost all the way) highway, and it's in pretty good shape. Only problem there is the intersections every few kilometers, where suddenly the speed limit drops from 110 km/h (with a whole lot of people, OK including me, safely doing more like 140), down to 70. Very dangerous... and just as dangerous when the cops are there with radars, and everyone screeches to a crawl.

But if you want to drive very conservatively southward, you can very safely just stay in the right lane and drive 110. That's not the case on Highway 7, where there's no proper right lane to shelter in.

Look, I actually feel strongly that Polish drivers, 98% of them, are both skilled and courteous. More skilled than the average American driver, and more disciplined. Even my Polish friends laugh in disbelief when I tell them that.

It's just the 2% of **********s that cause problems with tailgating, passing on the right and cutting you off, passing in turn lanes... you know the ones... I think the problem is the big difference between the vast majority of good drivers, then suddenly these idiots pop up.

C'mon, you have to admit that the roads here in Poland are worse than in the Czech Republic or even Slovakia -- there's been much more relative transportation infrastructure investment there recently -- and I understand that the Baltic countries are investing more in their highways too. It is worse in most of the Balkans, and I imagine also in like Belarus -- but the latter isn't exactly post-Communist, is it?

I've done some driving in Italy, but in the north. Different country. I imagine it's different in the south, but at least there you'd always be alert for all the crazies...

But your mileage may vary, and this thread is about the diving (not driving) here. Sorry for the hijacks.

--Marek