SOK officers will be able to impose fines. The government is preparing new regulations

The bill will be presented on Tuesday, at the next government meeting.

The bill assumes that SOK officers will be able - just like police officers - to impose fines on drivers who break the regulations at railway crossings.

We will equalize the rights of SOK officers and police officers so that they can impose fines on the same principles if such situations arise, says Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Stanisław Bukowiec to RMF FM.

Currently, drivers who enter a crossing with a red light face a fine of PLN 2,000 and 15 penalty points.

The new regulations proposed by the government also provide for the withdrawal of a driving license for 3 months for this offense.

As an RMF FM reporter found out, for causing an accident at a crossing, the court may decide on a ban for a minimum of 3 years and impose a mandatory prison sentence.

Dramatic scenes in Łódź

Today, PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe published a video from Łódź, showing a city bus stuck under the toll gates.

The driver entered the crossing after turning on the red light at the traffic light and stopped in the danger zone. Passengers started to run away from the vehicle in panic.

Ultimately, the driver managed to back out and the train slowly passed through the crossing.

Tragedy in Sokolniki Suche

The tragic accident occurred on Wednesday in Sokolniki Suche in Masovia. The truck hit an Intercity train on the Szczecin - Lublin route. A train passenger has died.

When asked about the causes of the accident, the deputy head of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Piotr Malepszak, stated that after checking the monitoring from the locomotive's camera, it turned out that the truck driver had entered the railway crossing at high speed.

We estimate that the speed was around 40 km/h. The driver completely ignored the signals, appeared at the crossing and here physics and kinetic energy did their job. A vehicle weighing several tons, a train weighing over 400 tons and we see the tragic consequences of this event - the death of a passenger - said Malepszak.

Train drivers' protest

On Friday at noon, the twelve-hour protest of train drivers in Poland ended. It involved limiting the speed at rail and road crossings to 20 km/h.

According to the head of the Trade Union of Railway Drivers, Leszek Miętek, Wednesday's disaster, in which one person died, was a "crossing of the red line".