Carryfast:
Everyone knows that east euro drivers have always been suspect going back at least into the 1980’s when I spent loads of time driving amongst them on long holidays with the car in Yugo the only ones worse were the Turks running through the place .The only difference is now here is that it’s not considered pc to raise the subject and they’re driving on mostly motorways.Whereas there then it was mostly single carriageway roads.There were often trucks,cars and coaches in ditches which was the only way to survive when you were met head on by a truck overtaking another truck and ometimes a coach trying to overtake them both on a single carriageway road. Which is a scenario that I can remember having to get out of the way of personally and it’s only because there was enough room at the side of the road which is why I’m here to tell the story.
This is my favourite part of driving in Poland by far, single carriage roads trucks always on the limiter, lines of cars overtaking into oncoming traffic, it is by far the biggest buzz in driving here, I did think when I came to live here with my Western head on how dodgy this all seemed, but once i joined in, it is the most fabulous place to drive.
What I can remember was something similar to that but without any limiters on the trucks or the coaches and it was more a case of evasion than joining in.
caledoniandream:
All Middle East, Bugaria, and Yugo drivers know that the Turks where one of the best drivers in difficult circumstances.
They where proper mechanics, truck driver, Caterer and doctor all in one.
That probably explains it.Jack of all trades etc etc.But there’s a difference between just being braver ( to the point of suicidal ) than anyone else and being ‘best’.
Which probably explains the figures for at least for 1976 showing a rate of around 200 accidents per 10,000 vehicles in both Yugo and Turkey compared around 100 in France with only Portugal being more dangerous.But Turkey took first place in the world for fatal accidents at that time with the rate of increase rising faster than the rate of traffic growth with Yugo being in second place.
Saaamon:
People dont [zb] about in europe, everyone is alot more pushy but no one takes offence because its the done thing and it works.
I would say most folk in this neck of the woods are reading from the same page by and large, everyone wants to get from A to B as fast as possible, if someone wants to overtake, if I can, I pull right over and let them through, anyone coming the over way does the same, its seems to work.
Today a fella I was about to overtake on a dual, flick his indicator on and pulled in front of me for no apparent reason, then anchored on as he decided he was doing a U-turn at a gap, but I know this might happen, to me its an excuse to grab one of the wife’s breasts to stop her going through the windscreen as I have never trust the seat-belts. When I lived back home in the UK I would be chasing the fella with a knife.
Europeans have got nothing on the Asians. Last year I done a bit of travelling and when in Vietnam I bought an old motocross bike and done whole north to south thing… Epic on their roads, your talking trucks and coaches 3 abreast on a single carriage way at about 65mph with on coming traffic and when you get into the cities and towns traffic is just like a river it flows and blends in to each other. And they know how to use a horn!!
caledoniandream:
All Middle East, Bugaria, and Yugo drivers know that the Turks where one of the best drivers in difficult circumstances.
They where proper mechanics, truck driver, Caterer and doctor all in one.
That probably explains it.Jack of all trades etc etc.But there’s a difference between just being braver ( to the point of suicidal ) than anyone else and being ‘best’.
Which probably explains the figures for at least for 1976 showing a rate of around 200 accidents per 10,000 vehicles in both Yugo and Turkey compared around 100 in France with only Portugal being more dangerous.But Turkey took first place in the world for fatal accidents at that time with the rate of increase rising faster than the rate of traffic growth with Yugo being in second place.
The BIG question is and was did you ever drive there proffesional?
If you look at the roads and compare the accidents you will see that the countries with an high accidents rate most times have a limited infrastucture.
If you look at Peru and India for example the the accident rate is extreme.
No roads, no double lanes, no motorways, so if there is a vehicle on the same road as you, it will be hit.
The other thing is you was a tourist, unknown to the rules, on the wrong site of the road, out of your comfortzone.
The chance that you would have been in an accident was more dan 70%.
ask the boys who do Europeen recovery how many people get an accident abroad for them reasons.
caledoniandream:
All Middle East, Bugaria, and Yugo drivers know that the Turks where one of the best drivers in difficult circumstances.
They where proper mechanics, truck driver, Caterer and doctor all in one.
That probably explains it.Jack of all trades etc etc.But there’s a difference between just being braver ( to the point of suicidal ) than anyone else and being ‘best’.
Which probably explains the figures for at least for 1976 showing a rate of around 200 accidents per 10,000 vehicles in both Yugo and Turkey compared around 100 in France with only Portugal being more dangerous.But Turkey took first place in the world for fatal accidents at that time with the rate of increase rising faster than the rate of traffic growth with Yugo being in second place.
The BIG question is and was did you ever drive there proffesional?
If you look at the roads and compare the accidents you will see that the countries with an high accidents rate most times have a limited infrastucture.
If you look at Peru and India for example the the accident rate is extreme.
No roads, no double lanes, no motorways, so if there is a vehicle on the same road as you, it will be hit.
The other thing is you was a tourist, unknown to the rules, on the wrong site of the road, out of your comfortzone.
The chance that you would have been in an accident was more dan 70%.
ask the boys who do Europeen recovery how many people get an accident abroad for them reasons.
I wasn’t out of my comfort zone because I was a uk truck driver who was on holiday and drove the car through europe to get there and out of all those countries which I went trough to get there it was Yugo which I always found was the most risky place to drive anything regardless of wether it had been a truck or a car.
On the subject of euro recovery I’ve driven through europe with the car between here and the Mediterranean and/or Adriatic coast often two or three times a year most years between 1980 to date,without ever having needed those services.Trust me if it was all about being out any ‘comfort zone’ then I’m sure that at least some of those quick runs through the alps would have resulted in being able to fly a car a lot further after leaving the road than a slow heavy truck could when it went over the edge.
DannyDoncaster:
Talking to a shunter at a site today and he informed me the record had been broken thursday for longest time taken to back on a bay. 32 mins it took a polish driver with 3 helpers, and its not even hard. I have done it blind side before and only took 1 shunt and on in less than 2 mins. I find not all but most of them are CRAP, don’t get me wrong there is alot of crap british drivers out there as well, but they would not be trusted to go international.
No point of mentioning that as I could find countless amout of times that the same happened to British driver.
The record around 50 minutes and 47 shunts + scratched bumper. Everywhere you’ll find good and bad.
Some of the driving i’ve witnessed over recent years, and i don’t mean deliberately aggressive i mean criminally incompetent, has me wondering how they ever passed a test in the first place.
For a long time i’ve thought that the training and testing of our own drivers needs a complete overhaul, as so many seem to have not the foggiest idea, the lorry is driving itself and they are just steering it in many cases, tail wagging the dog.
Whilst we have so many hopelessly inadequate drivers of our own, how can we justify criticising those from other countries.
Harry Monk:
Anyone fancy starting a sweepstake on how long it takes Orys to turn up?
Sorry it took me so long, had to prepare my popcorn
These threads about “how bad are Eastern European drivers compared to creme de la creme of the trucking industry, the mighty Britons” is too boring to go over and over again, so I just say my usual in short form:
I neve seen any statistics supporting that myth. But I saw a statistic where pro rata to the number of British roads, Germans caused almost twice as much accident per head than Poles…
From my observations, average Polish driver is better technically, but has much less respect to the law and politeness to other road users than his British counterpart. So I think the bottom line is that I prefere to drive in Britain when it comes to road safety, but driving in Europe is much more fun.
and just to clear some myths: motorway training is not mandatory in all EU countries.
when comparing average Polish driver on British road to average British driver on British road, do remember, that average age of Polish driver is about 25 years lower than his British counterpart. Experience is obviously related to age.
My personal experience? I can’t recall any accident involving Eastern European truck side-sweeping car in UK, but I saw two accidents like that involving British trucks - one in France and one in Belgium.
as for 32 mins record of taking into the bay: I was once waiting in the queue, watching British driver trying to reverse his RIGID onto the bay. Finally the transport manager got angry, kicked him out of the cab and did it for him… Who knows, what would be the record if he did not interrupted him?
So as many reasonable users rightly pointed before, there are good and bad drivers everywhere…
Diesel Demon: thanks for that you worry about my health, I have no time for that any more, I said everything I had to say, it’s boring to have to bust the same myths allover again. I am now busy with my media project and with my dissertation, so I have less time for forums as well.
drew128:
Also if I signal to pull out to overtake into a space, that space is often closed down by someone speeding up as if I may have offended their manhood in someway.
Really gets my goat, that. You can see it coming a mile off as well.
I once blind sided a car in Belgium not far from Ghent. Car in front of me kept speeding up and slowing down in a typically eratic Belgian style of driving so I looked left in my mirrors, looked again, indecated, looked a third time and then moved out to lane two, only to feel a big thud and see a car swerve in to lane three infront of me, wobbling all over the place.
I thought I’d be in for it from the police as it was spitting with rain so under Belgian law shouldn’t have been over taking anyway but they weren’t bothered, just escorted myself and the car to the next layby and they buggered off. The driver of the Belgian car on realising I was right hand drive offered his profuse appologies for sitting in my blind spot. His rear passenger door and wheel arch were nicely dented in but he actually asked if me and my truck were okay and then he and his three passengers all shook my hand and wished me a pleasant onward trip to Germany and drove home!
This is only such a problem in the UK now because 85% of our export/import road freight is on non-UK trucks and an ever increasing amount of eastern European trucks engage traction only work here so the numbers of LHD trucks are huge. If British trucks were in such high numbers in all corners of Europe and road layout and car drivers combined to make blindspot accidents a possibility, I have no doubt whatsoever that we’d see a large number of British RHD trucks in blind spot crashes there. Lets not forget that there are also a massive number of accidents in the UK involving UK trucks that colide with cars in their blind spot when the car undertakes etc and then hovers in the blind spot, its no different.
Harry Monk:
Anyone fancy starting a sweepstake on how long it takes Orys to turn up?
Sorry it took me so long, had to prepare my popcorn
These threads about “how bad are Eastern European drivers compared to creme de la creme of the trucking industry, the mighty Britons” is too boring to go over and over again, so I just say my usual in short form:
I neve seen any statistics supporting that myth. But I saw a statistic where pro rata to the number of British roads, Germans caused almost twice as much accident per head than Poles…
From my observations, average Polish driver is better technically, but has much less respect to the law and politeness to other road users than his British counterpart. So I think the bottom line is that I prefere to drive in Britain when it comes to road safety, but driving in Europe is much more fun.
and just to clear some myths: motorway training is not mandatory in all EU countries.
when comparing average Polish driver on British road to average British driver on British road, do remember, that average age of Polish driver is about 25 years lower than his British counterpart. Experience is obviously related to age.
My personal experience? I can’t recall any accident involving Eastern European truck
Orys I think you’re forgetting to factor in the fact that some of the older Brit drivers still on the road today (and some who’ve retired early) were driving trucks in their early and mid 20’s but the difference between then and now was that there were no speed limiters fitted to the wagons.
You’ve obviously never seen the results of what happens when you’ve got a mixture of cars,trucks and coaches driven by East Europeans and Turks on the often single carriageway roads of the old Yugoslavia all trying to run at around the same type of speeds.IE as fast as the thing will go regardless of the actual road type road conditions and oblivious to the traffic that they were sharing the road with.
At which point I reckon that my relatively few years on the road as an early 20’s year old were worth more than all the years that those bunch of maniacs had between them and the same applied in regards to the way I drove (an unlimited) truck here at that time and after.
But you’re right about the issue of much less respect for the law and politeness not in the case of Polish drivers but Italian ones and in that case I’ve always driven there under the old idea when in Rome drive as Romans do which,as you say,is much more ‘fun’.Although ironically,considering the stick I often get,about not having actually driven a truck there, my answer to those is that they haven’t really lived or know how to drive,unless they’ve driven a decent British car, capable of over 150 mph,with a big V12 motor and open exhausts,in the company of Italian drivers,who are sometimes driving something just as quick,or sometimes even more,on an Italian motorway, and/or through the Italian mountains and through an Italian town like Milan or Palermo and then beat them at their own game.
But Yugoslavia at least during the 1980’s no thanks.
i think the government are missing a nice little earner.
on the spot fine of £60 for the offence of driving in a hgv blind spot.
using an overtaking lane for the purpose it isn’t intended for, £60.
driving a bmw, £60.
having a private reg that looks [zb]ing stupid, £60.
driving whilst under the influence of pmt, £60.
Carryfast:
Orys I think you’re forgetting to factor in the fact that some of the older Brit drivers still on the road today (and some who’ve retired early) were driving trucks in their early and mid 20’s but the difference between then and now was that there were no speed limiters fitted to the wagons.
I can assure you that there are some Polish drivers like that as well… Well, to do not look too far - I was driving unlimited 7.5 tonners in Britain myself…
Remember when I was heading back from some village in Dumfries and Galloway A702 and my driver’s mate told me that Polish drivers can’t drive. I was young and stupid back then so I gave him some ride, including drifting on a wet road with our Iveco… After we reached M74 I asked him: are you now happy with my technical abilities, and when he nodded, I said “so now we can drive back as civilised people” and set my cruise to legal speed…
You’ve obviously never seen the results of what happens when you’ve got a mixture of cars,trucks and coaches driven by East Europeans and Turks on the often single carriageway roads of the old Yugoslavia all trying to run at around the same type of speeds.IE as fast as the thing will go regardless of the actual road type road conditions and oblivious to the traffic that they were sharing the road with.
Don’t be silly, I started driving in Poland in 1998. Back then it was a mad country, speed limiters were “optional” It’s amazing how much Poland changed just over my adult lifespan. I was also driving in Asia.
At which point I reckon that my relatively few years on the road as an early 20’s year old were worth more than all the years that those bunch of maniacs had between them and the same applied in regards to the way I drove (an unlimited) truck here at that time and after.
Same here. I learned most what I know now in Poland. Britain is relaxing to drive.
But you’re right about the issue of much less respect for the law and politeness not in the case of Polish drivers but Italian ones
I would say generally on the South of Europe driving is much more crazy than north, and Poland, for some reasons (that I got my teory about it) sticks out from the European standards of it’s geographical position. But you are right, during my hitchiking times, the scaries ride I had in Italy… Going with 20 years old, rusty Fiat Panda on the mountain bendy road with constant squeelch of tires and speed up to 140 km/h with the old farmer who was driving with one hand only - now, that was scary
drew128:
Also if I signal to pull out to overtake into a space, that space is often closed down by someone speeding up as if I may have offended their manhood in someway.
Really gets my goat, that. You can see it coming a mile off as well.
Happens on a daily basis for me and it is mainly the BMW and Audi drivers who are going along at a stupid speed and once they notice the flashing yellow light, boom. They have closed that gap to prevent you from getting in front.
A few on here seem to have this narrow minded thing against “foreign drivers” as if they are all in the same category,… and maybe even one or two have a hidden agenda (although I will admit there are a lot of crap East Euros but also a few better ones) but if a left ■■■■■■ does something stupid it’s noticed, if a one drives along and manouveres perfectly it isn’t noticed, and is certainly never said that all foreign drivers are excellent drivers because of his GOOD driving standard, but if ONE is seen to make a balls-up, it’s ALL foreign drivers are …(.choose your own name ) and remember when we are abroad we are “foreign drivers” and also it’s the same situation if the dicks amongst us drive as they do we are ALL put down as the same as them by car drivers.
When I was on left hookers we had either step mounted cameras or a fresnel lens, which sorted the problem, and the only time I was in a side swipe was in Ireland when I was stationary being passed by a car, I reckon he saw the Dutch plates and saw an opportunity for a insurance write off on his sh-heap of a car, and he did get a shock when he discovered I was a Brit, but in Ireland the Police won’t get involved unless there is an injury, so I ended up getting the blame for it in the end . As for the UK I agree with whats been said about cars dawdling along in lane 2 until you indicate to pull out, then it’s like a switch has been flicked where they automatically accelerate , that in my opinion is the cause of a vast majority of side swipes.
.The only difference is now here is that it’s not considered pc to raise the subject and they’re driving on mostly motorways.Whereas there then it was mostly single carriageway roads.There were often trucks,cars and coaches in ditches which was the only way to survive when you were met head on by a truck overtaking another truck and ometimes a coach trying to overtake them both on a single carriageway road.
