I was in Spain for a Remembrance Sunday event and the local paper reported the following changes to the application of some laws.
1. Motorists should continue to carry spare lamp bulbs but are not legally required to do so as it is recognised that on many cars a change cannot be effected at the roadside.
2. The requirement to carry some car documents (insurance) is rescinded as this information is deemed to already be in the hands of the authorities - like our MIB database. The Spanish one is updated daily and it is thought that a motorist should not be penalised for failing to produce information which the authorities already have.
|
|
What a sensible bunch they are in Spain!
|
I agree; there are some very sensible laws which ought to be exported! My favourite ones:
1.Obligation to stop and help at the scene of an accident (as bare minimum, make an emergency phone call and/or transport an injured person to nearest first aid post)
2.Legal to exceed speed limit by 10% when overtaking (single carriage roads only) with no likelihood of speed camera prosecution, I hasten to add!
3.Wide berth obligatory when overtaking cyclists - both to reduce "wobble" and to alert following vehicles.
4.If no other road signs present (and they nearly always are!) priority to the right.
5.Obligatory warning triangles (one in front, another behind on s/c roads) and hi-vis jackets (for years now!)
6.Specific speed limits are posted on sharp bends rather than a "SLOW" sign.
7.No towing of cars allowed anywhere except by an authorised tow truck.
8.No mods to car (lighting, spoilers, windows, etc.) except at authorised garage; immediate MoT re-test upon completion of work; receipts to be kept with car docs.
9.Eyesight, hearing and reflexes tested upon renewal of driving licence (every 10 years/5 years after age 40)
10.Obligation to maintain or reduce speed and keep as far to nearside lane marking as possible when being overtaken.
Having said that, most drivers in Spain haven't a clue about lane discipline, roundabout protocol or concepts like a courteous thankyou wave or after-you flash; pedestrians at zebra crossings (half of which have traffic lights as well!) are often ignored and the accident and death rate on roads is twice Britain's...
|
>Eyesight, hearing and reflexes tested upon renewal of driving licence (every 10 years/5 years after age 40)
Excellent!
|
|
|
4.If no other road signs present (and they nearly always are!) priority to the right.
Why is this a good idea?
|
|
"...most drivers in Spain haven't a clue about lane discipline..." - not forgetting that a large percentage are visitors (30m+ per year) and expats (12% of the population), some of whom are "driving on the wrong side of the road"
|
>Eyesight, hearing and reflexes tested upon renewal of driving licence (every 10 years/5 years after age 40)
Except that being totally deaf is not a barrier to holding a licence.
|
4.If no other road signs present (and they nearly always are!) priority to the right.
Why is this a good idea?
The basic principle is to remove uncertainty and give drivers an indication of who should wait and who should go, especially at crossroads. If all drivers have the instinct of "give way to the right UNLESS you see a sign indicating otherwise" then instinctive behaviour is established and problems are avoided. Where three drivers arrive together at three of the four roads, it works, as it does where two drivers meet at right angles.
It is not, of course, perfect. In one long street I know, which has a number of crossroads along its length, there is one crossing where traffic from the right, coming downhill, has a STOP line and sign, which a new driver on the main road cannot immediately see. The driver on the main road (with no sign to guide him, since a "you have priority: do NOT give way!" sign does not exist!) may give way, incorrectly, to the driver from the right, who may decide to go. The siting of a zebra crossing at the edge of all four roads does nothing to alleviate the situation. Curiously, the chaotic and contradictory appearance of the layout means that there are never any accidents. ("Goodness knows how they ever got an Armada together!") :-)
Edited by Webmaster on 13/11/2008 at 00:16
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
What is the protocol at traffic islands in Spain?
|
"What is the protocol at traffic islands in Spain?"
If you mean roundabouts, it's pretty much "do what you can get away with"!
The *general* rule is to give way to traffic on the RAB, though a strategically placed Give Way triangle or traffic lights may indicate otherwise, especially on the larger ones.
Roundabouts are a relatively new phenomenon in Spain and rather than study what other countries did, establish Best Practice and actually have a policy and a bit of education first (TV ads, new paragraphs in the Highway Code, etc.) they were just built and left for people to work it out by themselves. Hardly any road markings (direction arrows) are used, which seems to reinforce the "do whatever you want" philosophy.
No one has a clue about indicators, of course, so they aren't used. Buses and lorries skirt right round the outside before turning off wherever they please. I was once cut up sharply in this fashion by a Butane gas lorry (the driver was smoking AND yakking on the mobile at the time) and if I had a Euro for every right-turning driver using the LEFT lane (and vice versa...), grrrrr......
|
|
The Road Accident death rate in spain is still more than double that in the UK.
|
Quote:...""1.Obligation to stop and help at the scene of an accident (as bare minimum, make an emergency phone call and/or transport an injured person to nearest first aid post)""
In France there is a legal obligation to help a fellow citizen in distress, e.g. stopping to help at the scene of an accident.
How different from here, where I've heard of cases of off-duty medical staff being advised not to help at the scene of an accident in case they get sued.
|
The quality of road planning here, particularly with roundabout design, is abysmal!
I live close to a stretch of the A7, (formerly the N340), which has fairly recently been dualled and had roundabouts installed.
The carriage way round these " glorietas" is so tight that it is a real struggle for vehicles to navigate them and keep in any sort of lane. The concept of a reasonably sized roundabout, with less than acute curves, does not exist.
No wonder there are so many instances of all sorts of vehicles being found "parked" in the middle of them, or impaled on the surrounding Armco!
Edited by malteser on 12/11/2008 at 13:09
|
|
|
|
The Road Accident death rate in spain is still more than double that in the UK.
Thanks for putting into context how effective all that extra bureaucracy actually is :-)
|
It makes me laugh how the introduction of bizarre / illogical / overcomplex laws in this country is always blamed somehow on the EU, but many of our European neighbours laws seem to be so much more sensible, logical and fit for purpose than our own.
|
|
|
These statistics for 2004 show some strange anomolies, Spain figures first then UK
Size of country 505,992 km2 / 242,900 km2
Population 43.2m / 59.8m
No. of RTAs 94,009 / 207,410
Killed 4,741 / 3,221
Injured 138,383 / 277,619
Source: www.unece.org/trans/main/wp6/transstatpub.html
Seems to show you're less likely to have an accident there, but if you do there's a greater chance of a fatality.
Higher speeds in Spain?
Better emergency services in UK?
Different methods of recording?
Higher occupancy levels in Spain?
Older cars in Spain?
|
I based my comment on these statistics, which are now getting rather out of date.
tinyurl.com/3z8wa2
Edited by drbe on 12/11/2008 at 18:15
|
These are rather more recent.
tinyurl.com/6l5lka
|
|
|
|
Far more people, far more cars, packed into far smaller area in the uk.
|
|
But the UK is far safer, in fact we come out very near the top (best) in just about all accident statistics.
|
Another fact that distorts figures in Spain is the concentration of accidents into holiday periods, especially August and the frequencies of "puentes" (long weekends) commemorating some obscure local martyr, when traffic density and hence accident rates can be up to ten times higher than normal.
I'd also have to agree with earlier comments about ageing cars and emergency services not being at such a high standard as in the UK (there are four police forces and five or six separate ambulance services where I live, and with local, (50) provincial and (17)regional autonomous governments I can't begin to imagine who actually compiles any data or from which sources!
But ironies abound: Spain has the world's best organ transplant rate and donations run at about 92% in the Basque Country where I live. The marked decrease in road fatalities since points were introduced on licences two years ago actually now means that the rate of organ transplants is falling and waiting times are lengthening!
Edited by Bilboman on 13/11/2008 at 01:06
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
