Polish drivers face costly fines and a forest of road signs, WEI report says

Poland’s traffic system has become a maze of signs, cameras and penalties that does not necessarily improve road safety, according to a new Warsaw Enterprise Institute report.

The report counted 483 vertical road signs along the 20-kilometre route from Wesoła to Warsaw’s Aleje Jerozolimskie. It also said 331 different authorities are responsible for installing signs. The findings build on a Supreme Audit Office inspection that found legal or procedural inconsistencies on nearly two-thirds of the road sections it examined.

WEI focused on measures intended to prevent crashes, including speed enforcement and penalties. Of 43 new section-speed measurement systems launched in 2026, 41 were installed on motorways and expressways, which the report describes as among Poland’s safest road categories. More than half of all such devices now operate on motorways and expressways.

The report said one in four motorway incidents results from drivers failing to keep a safe distance. Speed cameras do not currently monitor that offence, even though it causes the highest number of crashes on those routes. In 2024, the devices recorded more than one million speeding violations, and more than half involved speeds no more than 20 km/h above the limit.

WEI analyst Wojciech Wyszomirski questioned whether enforcement policy prioritizes safety or ease of issuing fines. The report also compared the financial burden of penalties: an average monthly gross wage in Poland covers 35 fines for exceeding the limit by 20 km/h, compared with 75 in Germany and 162 in Lithuania.

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Safety on the road requires directing enforcement where the most serious incidents actually occur. If 41 of 43 new section-speed measurements go to motorways and expressways, where only 3.5% of crashes are recorded, it is difficult not to ask whether the priority is still safety or already the ease of issuing fines.