On driving in Poland

The roads range from excellent – new, wide, well surfaced and with a broad, sealed verge – to very narrow and very rough with broken, potholed edges, no verge and often avenues of trees as close as 30cm  from the tarmac. It’s hard work at times, needing plenty of concentration in a large-ish vehicle such as ours, especially when passing very big trucks.

The cars are of similar vintage to those on Australian roads and the drivers are generally very courteous and considerate although you do have to be constantly aware of the  fairly frequent ‘adventurous’ overtaking manoeuvres – both oncoming and overtaking – which often require some cooperation from other drivers to complete in safety. On the subject of courtesy – according to our National Park guide - people probably see the German registration plate and large German writing on front and back, think ‘tourist’ and give us a wider berth.

Road rules seem like common sense but speed limits continue to be something of a mystery and seem to depend a little on who you talk to. Motorways are generally 120, and two-lane roads 90, but even on quite major roads each little settlement has speed restrictions. Between the town signs the limit is either ‘drive carefully’ or 70 unless the town sign has a white background when it is 50, except when otherwise signed, which can be 70, 60, 50, 40 or 30. However, “50 really means 60, 70 really means 80,” as there is ‘usually’ a 10kph buffer granted. We think that we may have had our photo taken the other day but have no idea why. We had just passed a 70 restriction sign and were travelling at exactly that speed, so who would know? Guess that we’ll find out when we drop the vehicle back in Hamburg!  According once again to our local ‘expert’ it was probably another car, but “Don’t worry, they probably won’t chase you back to Germany, let alone Australia...”

Navigation has presented some challenges. Road signs in places have been excellent, in others non- existent, including route numbers, so a little guesswork is often required. This is compounded by the fact that our road atlas is at times rather ‘approximate’ and place names are almost invariably spelt differently to the way they appear on signs and often differently again on other maps. Then, of course, there is the problem of trying to read a number of unfamiliar place names in Polish while passing by at speed, often in heavy traffic, so a few laps of roundabouts are sometimes required.

As we go into Slovakia, Hungary, etc., things will change again, although speed limits and headlights on all the time are pretty standard.  Blood alcohol readings do change...from .08, .04, and in Hungary, 00.00.  Suffice to say that we are being particularly careful, haven't yet been 'caught out' driving on the incorrect side of the road, and going around roundabouts to the right now seems normal. 

And away we go!!