Harry Monk:
No, we were still doing an enormous amount of continental work up until the 2004 eu expansion, and the simple fact is that it was not commonplace to see a car which had been sideswiped by a British truck. Yes, the standard of driving by eastern Europeans is poor and as for the standard in Russia, it is absolutely appalling and car drivers think nothing of stopping in the outside lane of a motorway to change a wheel for example.
Someohow I don’t believe you - I saw British truck side sweeping car in France and in Belgium myself this year. So if it happens now often enough for me to see it twice, I don’t believe that it was so unheard of back then when the British traffic in the continent was much bigger than today.
As for the driving standards of Eastern Europe - you can make this bold, underlined, you can also make the font bigger and brightly red, but it will still not make it true 
Every nation has its share of good and bad drivers, skills of the drivers are not dependant of their nationality. But the system of training is different and some road customs can also differ.
Saying that there are off course some fields when some nationalities will be better than others - for example standards of British drivers in snowy condition is appaling compared to Polish standards, and yet we ■■■■ compared to the Scandinavian drivers. I think it’s obvious that this fact has nothing to do with nationality, but it is strictly related to the amount of experience average driver from each of these countries can gain in driving on snow?
GBPub:
Orys, you talk a load of carp and not the type you eat for Xmas dinner.
Yeah, that was really strong argument. You might want to make it even stronger by bolding and underlining it, as Harry Monk did
As for your answer regarding side swiping, funny that we see it all over Europe so NO it isn’t just the fact they are LHD vehicles driving in the UK
Off course, I wrote that this is most likely situation to end like that. You are off course right, the situation of side sweeping by the truck suitable for the country when it happens can be seen allover Europe, including British isles.
it is as most will agree the standard of driving by Eastern Europeans is appalling
Most of this forum users will agree, maybe. No wonder, if most of this forum users have next to none knowledge about the subject and is British, and its very comon amongst Britons to think that they are better than other nations Still it does not make it true.
Really don’t know why they bother having mirrors fitted as they obviously don’t use or know how to use them. This says it all to me and it was you who said it:
orys:
- Polish drivers have less respect to the highway code
- Polish drivers tend to speeding more
See - exactly what I mean: I gave you my observation about both British drivers and Polish drivers, yet you picked only the facts about Polish drivers
Check the statistics, I can’t find it now, but in 2008 Polish drivers in UK caused 11 times less accident per head than for example German drivers in UK. I think also French and other Western nations were having worse statistics then we had, obviously then if we are not talking about opinions but about fact, the Eastern European driving standards cannot be so bad. Cant’ find it now, but I found the information that this infamous guy who caused the deadly accident was Portugeze. I can hardly consider Portugal as Eastern European country
Oh and for your information, I have some very good Polish friends who have been living in the UK since long before Poland was allowed to join the EU and have even visited them in Poland when they have gone back on holiday.
Cool, I was once in San Marino. Somehow I don’t think I have enough experience to draw any conclusions about San Marinians driving
) about a young lad who was like a double agent from talinn, and there was something about his sisters and i vaguely remember something to do with wolves. which is why i asked if talinn was a nasty place in the war