Emergency corridors coming to Poland

Poland is the eighth European country to implement an “emergency corridor” system to clear the way for emergency vehicles on congested roads.

The system, which has been shown to reduce response times by 4 minutes, and increase survival rates by 40%, is already used in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Switzerland but was not widely known outside of those countries.

The system was a focus of ETSC’s REVIVE project on improving post-collision response and was presented at a number of the project’s meetings of international experts.  An ETSC video explaining the system was also seen by more than half a million people on the Facebook social media platform.

These discussions contributed to the Czech Republic aligning its emergency corridor rules with other countries.  Previously the country had required drivers to form the corridor next to the right-most traffic lane – but it has now switched to the left side in line with the other European countries that use the system.  ETSC’s understanding is that the Polish Ministry of Transport’s decision to introduce the system was also influenced by ETSC’s work in promoting it.

The Polish government has produced an interactive film in Polish and English to promote the new system to drivers. http://www.zyciemapierwszenstwo.pl/