Safety on the streets.

Streets in our country are not only bad in their quality and look. We also have to deal with problem related to people who drive on these streets. In the first part of this blog I would like to take a look at physical condition of the streets. Then I will focus on the problems such as drink-driving, exceeding speed limits and rude driving.

Despite that streets are being improved, most of them still are in a condition leaving much to be desired. Experts say that the main problem is in the type of facing. All new streets in Poland are made from asphalt, which is quite flexible and vulnerable to creating holes. That's why new streets after just a year or even few months of using have to be patched in many places. Concrete is thought to be the best material to build streets because it's solid and rugged. However, it is also very expensive. Nevertheless, we should answer the question what is more efficient and profitable: paying for patching cheap streets or paying for expensive streets which will last for a long time.

Whatever the answer would be, there should something done. The street isn't supposed to be a place where people are stressed and afraid of driving because of the holes which sometimes are really sizeable.

Now, I would like to throw some light on culture in the streets. Once, there was a survey concerning the skills of drivers. The percent of people claiming that their driving skills are very good amounted to 98%. Still, there are too many minor as well as serious accidents. The question is if the other 2% cause these accidents along with drink-driving.?

In my opinion there are three main reasons responsible for the number of accidents as well as enormous traffic jams. These are: egoism, lack of humility and of course not obeying the rules.

Many of us are in a hurry at least sometimes. We run out of our house with a piece of bread in our mouth and jump into the car. Then we push the pedal to the max and rush to our workplace. Everything is perfect until we are stopped by a jam. Then we start to contrive how to overcome the jam or just hop before the car driving ahead of us. The problem most of us never consider is that we are not the only ones in a hurry. Imagine that there is a jam and everybody wants to be in front of everybody. That's were the street conflicts and later stress are born. That reminds of the most common situation. For instance, let's take a junction with lights and there are two lanes. One lane is going ONLY to the left. The other one is going only straight. Now picture that there are a lot of cars waiting to turn left and the lane to go straight is empty. What many people would think in such situation?- "Hmm, I can just jump on the empty lane and hop in just before the first car. I won't stand here like these suckers." But what would be if all of us were this smart? It is statistically proved that such people worsen the fluency of traffic even by 40%. People from the traffic managment say that if everybody was driving properly without changing lanes all the time and without exceeding speed limits, the jams would reduce even by 20-30%.

The next subject I would like to emphasize is driving after drugs and alcohol. Everybody condemns these activities but still there are many people who do that. Moreover, there are people who denounce drink-driving and simultaneously drive after alcohol. The excuse are that: "Oh, I live just four blocks away" or "I had a couple of drinks but I feel good" etc. I would like to cite one of the conversations I had with my acquintance. His opinion was that drink drivers should be separated or eliminated. Once however, I heard that him and the other two guys were driving when they all were drunk. They were speeding 130km/h on one street but all the roads there had a priority and the speed limit was 40 km/h. When I heard this story, I shouted at him that they were total idiots and if I was there, I would have beat up everyone of them. He was outraged and said that I was stiff, because he was driving with his best friend and he had trusted him. I told him then that he should imagine the situation that his father would be driving into that street(he would have priority in joining the traffic). I asked what would be if they crashed into his father's car and killed him. After this my friend said that he never thought of that this way and that he would never ever do that again.

I also fear that such idiot could kill someone from my family. I know that someone can have a bad moment in his life and in a result get drunk and then drive. However, I don't feel obliged to share his sadness and I don't have to pay for his problems or fun by losing someone close.