The speed management situation in Poland

Problem description

Table. Consequences of failure to drive at a speed appropriate for the conditions in Poland between 2003 �?? 2007 (Source: Police Headquarters; 2004-2008).

The Police Headquarters builds the statistics based on traffic police officers' reports from the scene of the accident. The cause of a road accident is determined by police officers. Once written in their report, the information is never double-checked. The table shows that Poland has failed to implement effective measures to reduce the risks caused by speeding. Of particular concern is the strong increase in numbers killed. Surveys of traffic volume and speed in selected locations on rural roads, roads passing through small towns and city streets have been conducted periodically in Poland since August 2002. At first surveys were conducted every two months but now 4 measurement cycles are planned per year.

For every measurement series, data were registered at 32 points (road and street sections) with 16 installed stationary measurement stations and at 16 points situated in different places in each series (portable measurement stations). Overall, one typical measurement series produces data from 48 measurement points, representing single-carriageway rural roads with 90 km/h speed limit as well as roads and streets in built-up areas with a 50/60 km/h speed limit. Measurement points are chosen from the viewpoint of collecting speed data on roads and streets of different character in relation to function and cross-section. Below are the results from a recent measurement:

Table. Selected speed parameters in free flowing traffic (26 series; January 2008. 26 series NRSC study)

Road or street symbols:

Urban roads - cross-section of street with separate one-way carriageways - two or three 3.5-meter-wide traffic lanes in both directions
Rural roads (Z1+Z2) - cross-section 7.0 meters wide, a two-lane road with bituminous or soft shoulders
Rural roads (2 X 2 Ex) - Express roads - cross-section 7.0 meters wide, a two-lane road with bituminous shoulders
Rural roads (2 x 2) - cross-section 7.0 meters wide, a two-lane road with bituminous shoulders

Existing measures

In April 2005 the Polish government approved a governmental road safety programme (GAMBIT 2005). The programme assumes that within the next 10 years (from 2003 do 2013) the relation between vehicles exceeding speed limits and the overall number of vehicles using traffic will drop from 46 % to 30%. The programme proposes:

Revised speed legislation,
improved education and increased public awareness of safe speeds, improved speed enforcement (increased use of modern speed cameras, improved and intensified random speed checks, selecting spots for intensified speed checks, introducing an automatic speed check system and a fast and efficient enforcement system),
Carrying out a general review of speed limits (to regain driver trust to speed limits and use general speed limits for traffic conditions and roadside conditions),
Carrying out systematic speed surveys.

Following up on the GAMBIT 2005 programme, the Police Headquarters develops its own annual programmes of action, which include some activities in the area of "speed". In recent years the police have been organising a national operation once every quarter called "Action Speed". The operation involves intensified speed checks across the country. It was assumed that an operation will be considered successful if the percentage of road offences will drop by 25 % in a year, but it seems that no one is monitoring the results. Apart from that regional police headquarters organise speed checks on their own but access to the results may at times be time consuming.

Success stories

There have been two major successes in reducing speeding:

The introduction of the 50 km/h speed limit in urban areas (1997) led to a reduction of about 25 % in annual road deaths in urban areas. Unfortunately, Its positive effect has been reduced in 2001 by the Road Act, which has introduced a series of new measures, among which the right of way (also called "priority") for pedestrians on pedestrian crossings which has increased the road death toll. Followed by a lack of enforcement, compliance with this traffic rule is very low.
With introduction of penalty point system (2006), the level of speeding decreased. But once again: after a few months, fear of sanction disappeared due to a lack of enforcement and mean speeds increased again (to 20 %) though they have not exceeded 2005 levels.

What is needed for the future?