Residents of a small Polish town have painted their own pedestrian crossing onto a busy road after complaining that the authorities had failed to improve safety. The action is a violation of the law and could result in those responsible facing fines.
Locals in Głowno, a town of 14,000 in central Poland, decided to take the matters into their own hands on a national road that separates a car park from a recreation centre and reservoir popular with wakeboarders.
The makeshift pedestrian crossing sprang up under the cover of darkness. A notice was put up next to it, warning: “This action was taken by residents for residents, and if it does not bring about change, it will certainly not be the last.”
The announcement added that the spot has seen many accidents but that the local authorities had failed to act.
The mayor of Głowno said that, since the road was under the authority of the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA), a national body, there was nothing he could do.
A spokesman for the GDDKiA acknowledged that in 2020 it had received a proposal for a traffic management project, but he noted that it contained errors and was sent back for revisions. Revised plans were never submitted, news website Interia reports.
Interference with road markings is illegal in Poland and can be punished with a fine of up to 5,000 zloty (€1,065), notes the Auto Świat motoring news website. Things would get more serious, and a prosecutor would be called in, if an accident occurred at the makeshift crossing.
Fortunately, no such incident took place and the improvised crossing has since been removed by the GDDKiA, Auto Świat reports.
The number of road deaths in Poland is among the highest in the European Union, though it has been in decline over the past decade and continued to fall last year.
In recent years the government has taken a number of steps to improve road safety, including giving pedestrians priority at road crossings and approving a tenfold increase in fines for speeding.
All image credits: Jan Socik/Facebook
Peter Kononczuk is senior editor at Notes from Poland. He was previously a journalist for Agence France-Presse (AFP) in London and Warsaw.
