Poland: Prime Minister promises boost for road safety

The Polish Prime Minister has promised to make road safety a priority.  In a Facebook post on 29 October Mateusz Morawiecki said “A comprehensive plan for the radical improvement of road safety will be one of the government’s priorities in the new term.”

Road safety protests were sparked in Warsaw last month after a fatal collision between a BMW car – reportedly being driven at 130 km/h on a road where the speed limit was 50 km/h – and a man pushing a baby across a crossing.

ETSC understands the new measures will include a Safe Road Infrastructure Fund, additional resources for the police, tougher penalties as well as changes to road rules such as priority for pedestrians at pedestrian crossings.  A plan is already in progress to introduce the emergency corridor system to speed up emergency response, as ETSC reported in October.

Poland has also joined 11 other EU Member States in EU Road Safety Exchange, a joint EU-ETSC project to enable sharing of best practice on priority road safety issues.