In the article Piața Unirii – the killer passage, I focused on the answer to the question “why do drivers with tall vehicles go where they are not allowed?” From the point of view of this question, it was absolutely immaterial how exactly this prohibition came about, whether it made sense or not. That is why we completed the analysis of the accident on December 23, just before the collision with the height limiter.

This time I will look at why there is a height restriction over Union Passage, whether the height restriction was properly designed, and whether the 2022 reconstruction did not destroy the pass. As always, the answers are complicated and every detail counts.

But I will start by confirming the assumption from the first article.

The Greek driver did not get behind the wheel for 16 hours!

As we suspected, as details emerge, it becomes clear that the initial information, namely that the Greek driver had been behind the wheel for 16 hours prior to the accident on Pasaj Unirii, was completely false.

The length of the bus route was 900 km, along the route Volos – Larisa – Thessaloniki – Bucharest. Of the 900 km of travel, 550 km are on roads with at least two lanes in each direction and a central divider, i.e. a highway, expressway or national road with two lanes in each direction, such as the DN5 between Giurgiu and Bucharest.

The total time of actual driving on such a road is about 10 hours, which is much less than the 16 hours of driving that was originally talked about. I emphasize that the actual driving time is the time when the vehicle is in motion on public roads, with the engine running, and not the time when the driver is in the bus, but not driving!

According to the European Directive EC561/2006, in the European Union, professional drivers are fully allowed to drive a commercial vehicle for 10 hours a day, a maximum of twice a week. European law only covers actual driving time, not the total time the driver is in the vehicle, which can be much longer. The only legal requirement is that the driver take mandatory breaks between drives.

There is no legal obligation for a commercial vehicle to have two drivers on long journeys, only a legal obligation to comply with the maximum driving time.

In other words, if it fits into the 10 hours of actual driving, it is perfectly legal for one driver to take a bus from Volos to Bucharest on the same day. It is not recommended, but it is legal.

In the meantime, however, there are reports that the Greek bus had a second driver who drove the first 300 km to the border between Greece and Bulgaria. This would mean that at the time of the accident in Bucharest, the driver had only driven the bus for the last 600 km, during approximately 7 hours of actual driving. Stoppage time on the road is considered a break and is not included in this total driving time calculation.

For a driver, the difference between actually driving for 10 hours and actually driving for 16 hours is huge. The deterioration in attention and reflexes after 10 hours of driving is drastic due to the sheer effort of staying focused and alert for such a long period of time.

In fact, a driver who has actually driven 16 hours in one day, at the end of the race, has the same level of attention and reflexes as a person who is heavily intoxicated. What was missing in the accident in Bucharest.

History of Union Passage

To understand the context of the Union Passage today, we need to look at the context of the 1980s, when the passage was built, because the decisions made at that time are directly reflected in the very poor quality of the construction.

The Unirii passage is not the result of any vision to optimize traffic through the center of Bucharest, primarily because Bucharest in the 1980s did not have traffic problems.

In the mid-1980s, only 100,000 cars were registered in Bucharest, compared to 1.8 million today, of which approximately 15-20,000 traveled the city each day, compared to 3-400,000 today. So, in the mid-1980s, car traffic through Bucharest was about 20 times less than it is today.

Moreover, there was no prospect of an increase in automobile traffic through the capital, since the ownership and use of personal motor vehicles was systematically sabotaged by the communist authorities. They pursued a policy of restricting the mobility of people in order to limit the flow of information in the country and to avoid the crystallization of any movement of opposition to the communist regime.

Not only were the roads systematically maintained in a deplorable state nationally, but in the 80s the average waiting time to be able to buy a Dacia 1300 was 5 years, while for the newly arrived Oltcit the waiting period was 3 years. The private purchase of an SUV (off-road vehicle) was allowed only for those engaged in agricultural activities, and the private ownership of commercial vehicles (minibuses, buses, minibuses, trucks) was completely prohibited.

To all this is added the rationalization of gasoline sales, when each driver has the right to legally buy only 20 liters of gasoline per month. And this after waiting in line, which could last from three hours to three days. At that time, these 20 liters were only enough for 150-180 km, given the typical Dacia consumption of more than 10 l/100 km.

And as if all this were not enough, on Sunday, the only non-working day of the week, the movement of cars was allowed only alternately: on Sunday – with even numbers, on Sunday – with odd numbers. That is, each car could run only every other Sunday.

Even the wide boulevards that dotted Bucharest in the 80s had nothing to do with the vision of high car traffic in the future, but with mass control in case of protest. Because it is much easier to control masses concentrated on wide and straight arteries than scattered on small and winding streets.

So, at the level of 1986, when the decision was made to build Pasajului Unirii, there was no question of regulating the traffic.

In addition, Uniria Square has been in a general quagmire for ten years due to the numerous large construction sites in the area:

• I metro line (1975 – 1979)
• II metro line (1980 – 1987)
• the terrible redevelopment of the Dambovitsa river into an irrigation canal (1985 – 1988).
• demolition of Brankovenesk hospital (1984)
• demolition of Union Hall (1986)
• demolition of more than 20 thousand houses
• expansion of Unirea store with Splai and Călărași wings
• construction of new neighborhoods

  The construction of Pasajul Unirii was the result of the eccentricity of Nicolae Ceausescu, that is, the result of an impulsive decision made during one of the many visits he made in those years to the place of the Civic Center, as the arrangement of the People’s House, the square was then called Unirii, and the new boulevard Victoria Socialismului (now Unirii Boulevard).

  It was not enough for Ceausescu that the Civic Center was a North Korean-style mutilation of the historic center of Bucharest, which had already forced more than 40,000 Bucharest residents from their homes. He was unhappy that the city’s traffic, however light, was confusing his travels with the official motorcade through the new Civic Center. Therefore, during one of his visits to the construction site in 1986, he demanded the complete cessation of car traffic from Yednosty Square.

  Passaj Unirii is an underground gallery where the car traffic of “mortals” was hidden from the sensitive gaze of the Ceausescu dictator couple.

  This explains the fact that since the opening of Pasaj Unirii on June 6, 1987, through Piața Unirii and the new Victoria Socialismului Boulevard, all vehicular traffic, including public transport, has been completely prohibited.

  Such decisions were typical of the Chausius couple, but some of them were more sinister. For example, the chimney of the newly opened CET Progresu was shortened in the late 80s from 260 m to only 120 m because it obstructed the view of Bucharest from the balcony of the People’s House. This is even if the shortening of the chimney meant more pollution in the south of Bucharest. Fortunately, after 1990, the chimney from CET Progresu was raised to 240 m. Read the full article and comment on Contributotrs.ro