The DLA Research team takes a look at driving in Poland where it is discovers that “ass-like” driving is not always the same as “driving like ass!”

A Czarny Punkt, or Black Spot, marks a particularly deadly traffic location in Poland and includes the number of fatalties (zabitych) and injuries (rannych)

Last week, inspired by Peter Hessler’s intriguing article in the November 26 The New Yorker (“Wheels of Fortune”) the DLA research staff was hopeful that examination of driving instruction and licensing procedures in other countries might provide a window into Boston driving behavior. The first entry, “Learning to Drive #1: China vs. Massachusetts” relied on Hessler’s first-hand experiences to conclude that, despite the naïve charm and frighteningly arbitrary nature of Chinese driving and driving instruction, new drivers in China were being taught to drive like ass, unlike Boston where current research points to an innate behavioral component of ass-like driving.

Nonplussed, DLA researchers pressed on. I have spent a great deal of time in Poland both driving and being driven and it is my studied impression that Poland is a nation of ass-like drivers. Once again, hopes were raised here at DLA that Polish driving culture could help expand our understanding of Boston driving behavior. In Poland, relatively few Poles learned to drive under the Communist regime, but, like China, recent income growth has put new cars and new drivers on the road with predicable results. Now, according to most recent available data, Poland has close to 225 cars per thousand people, almost 10 times the same ratio in China.

The Penultimate Polish Driving Machine:The Polski Fiat 126 

Once, on the train from Gdansk to Warsaw, I shared a compartment with a young woman who was studying a book roughly the size of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics that science majors used to lug around in school. My Polish business associate told me that our traveling companion was studying for her driving license exam, a procedure considered by most people in Poland to be only slightly more agreeable than a body cavity search. A driver’s license is considered such a hot commodity in Poland that one of last year’s corruption scandals included allegations that certain members of parliament were passing their driving tests the first time, a revelation that outraged citizens as much as the fact that the MPs were also taking cash bribes and making illegal real estate investments.

Everyone in Poland has stories to tell about how many times they failed the test and for the remarkable driving arcana which the test inspectors would summon as a basis for failing hopeful drivers. Most felt this was just another example of post-Soviet officialdom hanging onto their last shreds of absolute authority. Still, Poland has one of the worst records of driving fatalities of any OECD country and much of that is believed to be alcohol inspired, even though the blood alcohol content limit in Poland of 0.02% (compared to 0.08% in the US)

My business experiences in Poland led me to believe that no one seems to be terribly concerned about being on time. Nonetheless, they do drive as if they want to get somewhere on time and, like any other country the ability to pass slower moving vehicles under all kinds of conditions is key to appearing like you have somewhere to be soon. In Poland, this includes:

1. passing on curves (really scary)
2. passing a car that is passing a car (I have been with drivers who did this and it is really scary)
3. passing against on-coming traffic (really, really scary)

The latter is made possible, although no less dangerous, by the fact that there is a tacit understanding in Poland that drivers will move onto the shoulder, if one exists (or onto the grass or sidewalk if one does not exist) in order to yield to oncoming cars that may be passing in their lane. Put another way, a car in the act of passing another has the right-of-way over oncoming cars. This amazing contradiction to what should be fairly universal driving decorum must surely constitute driving like ass in its purest form.

But, as bad as it may seem, this type of driving behavior in Poland seems to be linked to a very distinct factor: highway infrastructure. Highway infrastructure has had a difficult time keeping up with the explosion in car ownership: many of the existing roadways were constructed by the Germans during WWII. Perennially on the government’s agenda, expressway construction suffered regular setbacks from budget shortfalls and mismanagement. But Poland’s central location made it a key to transport between the East and West European countries and, with its entry to the EU, funds for highway construction started to flow. By 2006, Poland had a whopping 165 kilometers of “dual-carriageway expressways” (the official term for divided highways)…less than the distance from New York to Philadelphia.

The figure below shows, as of 2006, the status of Polish highway infrastructure, with existing roadways in black and “under construction” in red. Striking is the fact that not a single expressway connects any city with the country’s capital, Warsaw.

Source:  GDDKiA

Knowing this, it quickly became evident to the DLA research staff that Polish driving is a result of adaptive behavior. In a country with 9 million cars and where 99% of the roadways are two lanes or less, Polish drivers have adopted ass-like driving behaviors in order to get anywhere in any reasonable amount of time…they learned to drive like ass in response to extraordinary conditions (i.e., an inadequate highway infrastructure.)

Thus, DLA research has led us to another important theory: that driving behavior can only be considered ass-like in the absence of conditions that would otherwise justify or condone such behavior. In other words, you are driving like ass only if you have no reason to drive like ass.

Stayed tuned as the DLA research staff reports from Japan.