As reported by the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways, excessive speed and failure to adjust it to prevailing conditions are the cause of, on average, one in every five accidents. More than 20 percent of victims of accidents on national roads were killed because of excessive speed. Modern measuring devices are installed along new expressways, making it possible to determine the scale of the problem. The measurement results may provide a basis for developing a system to counter road traffic violations.
The office:
Last year, 5,600 road accidents occurred on national roads, resulting in nearly 1,000 deaths and 7,110 injuries. A decade earlier, 8,589 accidents, nearly 1,500 fatalities and 12,000 injuries were recorded on the network of roads administered by GDDKiA. It should be emphasized, however, that over the past 10 years the expressway network has almost tripled in size. Today, we have more than 4,000 km of expressways, whereas in 2010 there were fewer than 1,500 km!
Compared with statistics from ten years ago, the number of accidents and fatalities has fallen by approximately one-third, while the number of injured has declined by about 40 percent. This is not without reason: during that time, the length of motorways doubled, reaching more than 1,700 km, while the expressway network grew more than fivefold, to nearly 2,500 km. In theory, tragic incidents should not occur on this modern road network, because a safe road should not be a risk factor. In practice, dangerous incidents do occur, and their consequences are exceptionally tragic. They are caused by driver behavior—mainly exceeding the speed limit, often by extreme amounts.
A motorway and an expressway are not racetracks!
New, dual-carriageway, comfortable roads with wide lanes tempt fans of fast driving—ordinary road pirates and hooligans. In August this year, on the newly opened section of the A2 motorway between Warsaw and Mińsk Mazowiecki, police officers stopped a driver traveling at 225 km/h, while the maximum permitted speed on a motorway is 140 km/h. GDDKiA: “A motorway is not a closed racetrack, but a public road.”
Road officials add:
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. For example, on the approximately 160-kilometer concession-operated section of the A1 motorway between Rusocin and Nowa Wieś, as many as 168 vehicles reached the highest average speed recorded there in 2018: 248 km/h! This means that at times their speed may have approached 300 km/h! Such behavior creates a very serious danger and demonstrates some drivers’ complete disregard for the law.
In August this year, on the newly opened carriageway of the A1 motorway still under construction between Tuszyn and Piotrków Trybunalski, a driver reached 189 km/h. The speed limit on the section was 70 km/h because construction was still underway, and temporary traffic was traveling in both directions on a single carriageway.
This is extreme irresponsibility and puts the driver’s life—and above all, the lives of other road users—at risk. At such speeds, it is very easy to cause a disaster and the deaths of innocent people. Under the Criminal Code, anyone who causes a disaster in land, water or air traffic that threatens the lives or health of many people or property on a large scale is liable to imprisonment for between one and 10 years. Let us remember this when we are tempted to press the accelerator harder in our car.
Precise measurements
The latest continuous traffic measurement stations installed by GDDKiA along motorways and expressways are designed to record vehicle speeds. At present, 73 traffic measurement stations on national roads can record vehicle speeds. At one measurement point on the S3 expressway between Gorzów Wielkopolski and Szczecin, the device showed that more than 70 percent of drivers exceeded the speed limit, while 15 percent were traveling faster than 147 km/h; as a rule, the maximum permitted speed on an S-class road is 120 km/h.
An analysis of last year’s data from GDDKiA measurement stations on motorways shows that on average, around 80 percent of vehicles weighing up to 3.5 tonnes travel at speeds of up to 140 km/h. This means, however, that on average around 20 percent of so-called light vehicles exceed the speed limit, with most—around 15 percent—exceeding it by up to 10 km/h. Speeding above 150 km/h concerns approximately 6 percent of vehicles.
Where is the situation worst?
The scale of speeding may vary from one measurement station to another. The highest number of speeding vehicles is recorded on the Sługocin–Modła section between Poznań and Łódź on the A2 motorway—approximately 35–40 percent, including around 25 percent exceeding the limit by up to 10 km/h. The share of vehicles traveling at no more than the statutory 120 km/h is approximately 60 percent here on average, meaning that as many as 40 percent of drivers exceed the speed limit, with only around 15 percent exceeding it by 10 km/h.
Speeding is recorded everywhere
GDDKiA:
The ranges of speeding vary depending on the location of the measurement station. Stations that measure the speed of every vehicle offer greater possibilities for analyzing speeds. For example, at the station on the A4 motorway (Krapkowice–Kędzierzyn Koźle), around 10,000 vehicles traveling faster than 200 km/h were recorded throughout last year. Since the total number of vehicles recorded on this section in 2019 exceeded 14 million, this amounted to 0.06 percent.
The measurement station in Prądy on the A4 motorway (Podkarpackie Voivodeship) recorded 557 vehicles traveling faster than 200 km/h in August 2019. In the same month, the station in Marwice, on the Jastrzębiec–Gorzów Wielkopolski section—not a motorway but the S3 expressway—recorded five times as many vehicles traveling faster than 200 km/h. Measurements show that despite the lower permitted speed on expressways, drivers travel on them as they do on motorways. Speed-limit violations are most commonly recorded during the summer months, when weather conditions are more favorable. Interestingly, in 2019, more than 70 percent of accidents were recorded on dry, even road surfaces. The victims of these incidents accounted for nearly 69 percent of all people killed in accidents.
How does GDDKiA intend to solve this problem?
The office:
We are cooperating with the General Inspectorate of Road Transport so that average-speed enforcement can be introduced, among other places, on the S2 and S8 in Warsaw and on the A1 between Tuszyn and Częstochowa. According to road safety specialists, average-speed enforcement is the most effective tool for preventing speeding.
It forces drivers to maintain an average speed over a longer section of the route in accordance with the regulations, improving traffic flow. It is more effective than speed cameras, before which drivers brake sharply and then accelerate again afterward.
What do you think? We invite you to join the discussion.