SpringerLink
Log in

Road traffic injuries in Poland: magnitude and risk factors

  • Review Article
  • Published:
European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Introduction

The article presents the epidemiology of road traffic injuries and fatalities in Poland in the years 2004–2014. In Poland, every fourth death caused by external reasons is the result of a road traffic crash and Poland has one of the highest road fatality rates in relation to vehicle ownership in Europe, with an average 23 deaths per million residents. This rate is two times higher than most other European Union countries.

Materials and methods

The research is based on a secondary analysis of data contained in multiple Polish governmental reports, including those of the Prevention and Analysis Office of Road Traffic Headquarters of Police, National Road Safety Program—GAMBIT 2005, National Road Safety Program 2013 to 2020, and Strategy for Efficient State in 2020, plus previous publications describing road safety in Poland. Data were analysed in two steps. First, the data were described using means and frequencies, and tabulated according to variables. Second, we considered the time frame (day, month, and year of the occurrence), the place and the circumstances of fatal road crashes, the kind of event, and types of road crashes.

Results

Between 2004 and 2014, there were 475,591 traffic crashes on Polish roads. 52,217 people were killed and 597,191 people were injured. Traffic-related injuries represent the leading cause of death for Polish men up to 44 years of age. The most common cause of road crashes in Poland was failure to comply with the rules of the road traffic, such as through excessive speeding. We also found drivers poorly assessed road situations, faced a lack of adequate road infrastructure, and maintained many vehicles in poor condition.

Discussion

Despite the variety of measures undertaken to improve safety on Polish roads, including modifications of the law as well as improving road quality, the number of fatalities and injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes is still considerable, and the losses incurred by Polish society are still substantial.

Conclusions

The number of fatalities and injuries as a result of road crashes in Poland remains very high. Multifaceted action to improve safety on the roads in Poland should continue.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price includes VAT (Germany)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Global status report on road safety 2013: supporting a decade of action. World Health Organization; 2013.

  2. Global status report on road safety 2015. World Health Organization; 2015.

  3. Central Statistical Office of Poland. 2015.

  4. Paradowska M. Comparison of road safety policy objectives in Poland and in the European Union. In: Bąk M, editor. Transport development challenges in the twenty-first century. Cham: Springer; 2016. p. 103–23.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Budzynski M, et al. Trees in the roadside as factor in road safety in Poland. In: Australasian Road Safety Conference, 2017, Perth, Western Australia, Australia. 2017.

  6. National Road Safety. Program 2013 to 2020. http://www.krbrd.gov.pl. (in Polish).

  7. Prevention and Analysis Office of the Road. Traffic Headquarters of Police. http://www.policja.pl. (in Polish).

  8. Goniewicz K, et al., Road safety in Poland: magnitude, causes and injuries. Wiadomosci lekarskie (Warsaw, Poland: 1960). 2017;70(2 pt 2):352–356.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Rychter M, Sułek P. The analysis of road safety in Poland. Autobusy: technika, eksploatacja, systemy transportowe 2017;18.

  10. Prochowski L, Jemioł L, Gidlewski M. Analysis of the local accident hazard in individual regions of Poland. Archiwum Motoryzacji 2017;77(3):133–47.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Jamroz K, Smolarek L. Driver fatigue and road safety on Poland’s national roads. Int J Occup Saf Ergon. 2013;19(2):297–309.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Jaśkiewicz M, Jaskólski J. Wypadkowe dane statystyczne na polskich drogach w latach 2001–2016. Autobusy: technika, eksploatacja, systemy transportowe, 2017;18. (in Polish).

  13. National Road Safety Program – GAMBIT. 2005 http://www.krbrd.gov.pl (in Polish).

  14. Goniewicz M, et al. Pattern of road traffic injuries in Lublin County, Poland. Central Eur J Pub Health. 2012;20(2):116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Strategy for Efficient State in. 2020. http://administracja.mswia.gov.pl (in Polish).

  16. Budzynski M, et al. Road infrastructure safety management in Poland. In: IOP conference series: materials science and engineering. 2017. IOP Publishing, Bristol.

  17. Oskarbski J, Mowiński K, Żarski K. State of development of intelligent transport systems services on national roads in Poland. Arch Transp Syst Telemat 2017;10.

  18. Country Report on Poland. Road safety management capacity review. Report No. 78319-PL. Washington: Worldbank; 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Prochowski L. Analysis of the impact of road category and day of the week on accident hazard in the road transport of goods in Poland. J KONES, 2013;20.

  20. Bergel-Hayat R, Zukowska J. Road safety trends at national level in Europe: a review of time-series analysis performed during the period 2000–12. Transp Rev. 2015;35(5):650–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Artamoshina M. The European countries’ government programs targeted to decrease the road traffic injuries. Problemy sotsial’noi gigieny, zdravookhraneniia i istorii meditsiny 2008(6):39–44.

  22. Nikolaou P, Dimitriou L. Evaluation of road safety policies performance across Europe: Results from benchmark analysis for a decade. Transp Res Part A Pol Pract. 2018;116:232–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Castillo-Manzano JI, Castro-Nuno M, Fageda X. Could being in the European Union save lives? An econometric analysis of the Common Road Safety Policy for the EU-27. J Eur Pub Pol. 2014;21(2):211–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Goniewicz K, et al. Road accident rates: strategies and programmes for improving road traffic safety. Eur J Trauma Emerg Surg. 2016;42(4):433–8.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Disaster Medicine, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Witold Pawłowski

  2. Department of Security Studies, Polish Air Force Academy, Dywizjonu 303 street, no 35, Dęblin, 08-521, Poland

    Krzysztof Goniewicz

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA

    David C. Schwebel

  4. Center for Injury Research and Policy, Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, USA

    Jiabin Shen

  5. Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland

    Mariusz Goniewicz

Authors
  1. Witold Pawłowski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Krzysztof Goniewicz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. David C. Schwebel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Jiabin Shen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Mariusz Goniewicz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: WP, KG; analysed the data: KG, MG; contributed materials/analysis tools: MG; wrote and critically edited the paper: WP, KG, MG, DCS, JS.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Krzysztof Goniewicz.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Witold Pawłowski, Krzysztof Goniewicz, David C. Schwebel, Jiabin Shen, and Mariusz Goniewicz declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 30 KB)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Pawłowski, W., Goniewicz, K., Schwebel, D.C. et al. Road traffic injuries in Poland: magnitude and risk factors. Eur J Trauma Emerg Surg 45, 815–820 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00068-019-01093-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00068-019-01093-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation