Before giving you my latest lengthy compilation of 3 years’ posts – this time on driving in Spain – I want to ask whether anyone [specifically John in Barcelona] can explain what is happening with the guy who heads up the organisation called Batasuna here. This is said to be the political wing of ETA but, unlike the IRA in the UK, is illegal. Its president appears frequently in the press – either pontificating or being accused of one thing or another - and he was due to attend a trial earlier this week. Claiming to be snowed-in where he lived, he had to be dragged to the court by the authorities, whereupon the Prosecutor General immediately withdrew the charges and he was released. I’m at a complete loss on this so would appreciate help from anyone other than Basque foot-soldiers who want to tell me just how badly the guy is treated by the running dogs of a fascist, Francoist, imperialist Spanish government. I am especially averse to hearing from any of these who don’t even live in Spain but in, say, New Zealand.

And so, onto to . . .

DRIVING IN SPAIN

2003-4

I wonder whether the pedestrian-killing season has begun in Pontevedra. I say this because yesterday I twice had to take evasive action on a zebra crossing and this morning I witnessed the ultimate in confrontation. Just after I had negotiated a crossing, I heard a strident car horn and looked over my shoulder to see a young driver gesticulating and shouting at an old man who was rather slowing making his way across the road. The gestures and the language made it quite clear that the latter was being berated for not stopping in the middle of the crossing to make sure that the former had enough time in which to stop. The clear inference was that the young man had every right to drive exactly how he liked. In fact, he was advertising this belief by driving a garish red sports car. Others of this ilk drive customised cars with ludicrous spoilers fore and aft and speakers that seem to direct all their sound outwards for our benefit. More often than not, their cars are painted yellow, not a colour I would previously have associated with naked aggression. They are not unique to Spain, of course, but seem rather numerous here. The local word for them is ‘morulos’, which doesn’t appear in my dictionary but which seems to mean something like ‘country bumpkin’.


An English friend of mine here was fined last week for not stopping in the middle of an empty road when he was turning left. Given the widespread flouting of traffic rules here, this was somewhat ironic. And rather unfair, we agreed. I thought of him yesterday when a woman – mobile phone in hand and seatbelt unfastened – zig-zagged past both me and the traffic cop on the zebra crossing I was traversing outside a local school. With impunity, of course. Things might have been different if she had had a child sitting on her lap, though I rather doubt it.


It was reported in Friday’s papers that, on the main roads, less than 50% of Spanish children are protected via a child seat. In towns, the number falls to less than 20%. As if we didn’t know. The European average was said to be around the 95% mark. A law making protection obligatory will come into force next June but one wonders whether it will make much difference. The Spanish affection for children is exceeded only by their love of breaking rules. Especially if they are not much enforced. It is rare that one sees adults using the belts that have long been obligatory.


A great deal of attention is being paid right now to road death statistics, especially in the light of impressive reductions made last year in France and Italy after the introduction of tougher laws. Stating, perhaps, the obvious, El Pais today pointed out that it wasn’t as simple as just having tough new laws; the real challenge was getting Spaniards to obey them. As it happens, I have been conducting an (entirely unscientific) study in town over the last week around the wearing of safety belts. These have long been compulsory in Spain – in the front seats at least – but my conclusion is that compliance is around the 50% level. As you might expect, women are nearer 75% and men 25%. As I write this, I am reminded of the report in a local paper last week of a driver who was decapitated when projected out of his car in the direction of wires holding up the vines at the side of the road. We had pictures of the wrecked car but not of the separated body parts. Believe me, if they could have got them, we would have had them. This is a speciality of the Spanish press.


Refining my findings on seat belts today, I concluded – without surprise – that the biggest offenders were drivers of delivery vans and taxis. But it was a tad shocking to see an ambulance go past me with neither of the front seat passengers belted up. Perhaps they have a dispensation that they are stupid enough to take up.


As of this month, it is illegal to have either your car engine, lights, mobile phone or radio switched on when you are filling up with petrol. Plus, when you have set off, it will be an offence to have on anything such as a DVD or TV which might distract the driver. I will think of these safety-oriented rules – and the likely compliance rate – each time I see a car flash past me at 180kph with the driver talking on the phone while his wife bounces a toddler up and own on her lap in the adjacent front seat. Strangely enough, the one thing that can be guaranteed to distract the driver – an onboard GPS system – is exempted from this ban.

In addition it will soon it will be compulsory to carry a luminous jacket in your car, for the use thereof if you exit the car at night. Or possibly if you just sit in it when the car is stationery. There is some confusion on this point. Anyway, this jacket now joins quite a long list of things one is compelled to have in one’s car in Spain, others being not one but two warning triangles and a set of fuses. In a country where the mortality rates are very high, I would have thought there was a good case for concentrating on a few essentials – such as staying on your side of double white lines or not being blind drunk - but there you go. That’s why I’m not a politician.


I belatedly realised this morning that many Spanish drivers use their indicators in a completely different way from their counterparts in the UK. Whereas Brits use them to signal an intention, Spanish drivers use them as a warning. What they really mean is not ‘If it is safe and OK with you, I intend to turn in a while’ but ‘Stay out of my way. I am about to cut in front of you’. Or ‘I am coming up behind you; Get out of my way’. This, of course, is why they are not used until the last second. It is a nice irony, I guess, that Spanish drivers use their real warning lights as what we might call ‘parking illumination’. I suppose there is a clue to all this in the respective languages. British English uses the word ‘indicator’, which connotes the sense of future intention cited above. Spanish uses ‘intermitentes’, which is merely descriptive and leaves the purpose of the lights open to interpretation on a case-by-case basis.


The President of the Galician government, Mr Fraga, emerged unscathed from a traffic accident yesterday. Mind you, this was not a total surprise as he was being chauffered in an armoured Audi A8. The occupants of the two cars his ploughed into were not quite so lucky, being somewhat less protected. The accident happened when a car coming the other way both ignored the frantic waving of the President’s police protection and then crossed a solid white line to make a blatantly illegal turn. The reported reaction of Mr Fraga was to suggest that the curves on the road needed ‘improving’. Once again, I am lost as to where the logic is here, specifically how a straighter road would improve the driving of a congenital idiot. But this is why Mr Fraga, at 86, is still a powerful politician and I am not. And never will be.


Last week a friend of mine was waiting at a junction when a car crashed into him from behind. It turned out to be a police car and the driver - at 3.30 in the afternoon - was clearly drunk. He suggested that he and my friend drive separately to the local police station but apparently got lost on the way and never made it. Although he subsequently turned out to be the head of the local police, I haven’t yet noticed any coverage of this incident in the local papers. Perhaps when it all gets to court….

Talking about driving . . . There was one of those all-too-common reports in yesterday’s paper about a car leaving its side of the road ‘for reasons as yet unknown’ and killing all its occupants when it crashes into a wall, tree or - most frighteningly - an oncoming vehicle. Most often – as in this case – this happens between 2 and 6 in the morning. And on a bend. I think one can make a fairly educated guess as to why this type of accident occurs so frequently, especially when the car is large and powerful and/or the driver very young.


Down at the other end of the Spanish morality scale, I bumped yesterday into my friend who had had the police car drive up his backside. He told me that, after he’d presented himself at the local town hall to complain of both the incident and the no-show of the miscreant, he had been driven into Pontevedra by a policewoman in mufti. Driving along with no seat belt whilst having a mobile phone conversation with her husband, she had been pulled over by the traffic police. On showing her badge she had been waved on her way to the city’s main police station. Here he gained the distinct impression that what had happened was not exactly a rare event and that no one was going to take it very seriously. So it was no great surprise to him that, in a bar later that evening, he was greeted with a big smile by the perpetrator. It was rather more of a shock to him the following evening when the same chap came up behind him, shook the collar he was wearing for the sore neck he had developed and suggested, with a laugh, that he was going to be making a pile out of the events. And still no reports in the local press.


It continues to amaze me how Spanish drivers will quietly tolerate the most flagrantly stupid and obstructive driving of others, whilst getting very irate if you delay a micro-second at the traffic lights. I’m not so much talking here about blocking the road with inconsiderate parking or coming the wrong way down a one-way street. My impression with these [relatively] minor misdemeanours is that other drivers don’t complain because they know very well they’d do the same thing if they had to. What I mean is imbeciles who drive down the hard shoulder when there are long delays on the motorway and then signal that they intend to rejoin the traffic when they get to the head of the queue. Without fail they are immediately let in, even by someone who has resisted the temptation to do the same thing.


You’ll recall that two days ago the Spanish government identified ‘Driver distraction’ as one of the main causes of the country’s high road accident statistics. Yesterday they announced a new measure aimed at reducing the daily toll - large electronic signs at the side of the road for drivers to peruse as they pass. These will say things like:-

ALCOHOL + DRIVING = DEATH

And,

35 PEOPLE ALREADY KILLED ON THE ROADS THIS WEEKEND. OOPS, 36.


It has seemed to me for a while that indicating by drivers has been reducing from its already low base. At a roundabout today I realised why; it is impossible to operate the indicator stalk with your left hand when it is permanently holding a mobile phone to your ear. If ever an invention was designed for a people who enjoy talking, have a high tolerance of risk and hate obeying rules, it must be this one.


Picking up on the theme of illegal [and obstructionist] parking, I have belatedly realised that there is one law in Spain that is obeyed even more than the law of supply and demand. This is that - rather like water finding its own level - every road or street in Spain will always reduce itself to either one lane, if it’s one-way, or two lanes, if it’s two-way. Regardless of the road’s width, every other lane will be taken up by parked cars. If one is lucky, the traffic will flow reasonably smoothly down the residual lane. Until, of course, someone wants to park. Or, more often, to chat with a friend. Or, in Andrew’s experience the other day, to reverse against the flow. The only thing which can free the road is the appearance of the dreaded grua, the crane which drags the occasional offending car to the pound. When this happens, cars, vans and trucks alike scatter like cherry blossom in a gale. Only to return a few minutes later, of course. Would that we were so lucky with cherry blossom.


Pondering [yet again] on the aggression and stupidity of Spanish drivers on motorways, it struck me that their eagerness to court danger and death probably reflected the wannabe bullfighter in them. A little later, it occurred to me that this couldn’t possibly be an original thought. Shortly after this, I realised it wasn’t accurate either; years ago I regularly saw far more stupid and dangerous driving in Iran. And I don’t recall seeing any bullfighting there. Back to the drawing board.


Meanwhile, another local 19 year old died on the motorway this weekend when his car – ‘for reasons as yet undetermined’ – crashed into the central barrier on a curve. Needless to say, neither he nor either of his two seriously injured passengers were wearing seat belts.


I am about to drive to the south of France for a few days. Ryan, my border collie, has insisted on coming with me. He has reminded me that this was one of the main reasons I bought a hatchback last year. At the English Speaking Society last night, I was advised I’m not allowed to have him in the car itself and must have a net between me and him if he’s in the boot. So, it’s OK in Spain to put your child on the dashboard but you can’t put your dog in the boot. We all agreed that the most nets you were likely to see in a lifetime was around one or two.

Still on the subject of driving, I have decided to stop signalling at roundabouts. This clearly confuses other drivers as, when I signal that I’m turning left, it incites them to rush in front of me. It has been explained to me this is because they assume that I’m going right round the roundabout and, therefore, the same way as them. So they accelerate to get ahead of me. Better to leave them guessing as to where I might actually end up as this forces them to hesitate. Stop even. The most astonishing thing about this advice is that it works. I shall experiment on French roundabouts later this week


On my long drive to France and back, I came to realise just how relaxing it is to travel within the speed limit on Spain’s wonderful motorways. For a start, you hardly ever have to risk any overtaking, as you rarely catch up with anything ahead of you. Secondly, you don’t need to worry about the traffic police who are lying in wait for the drivers that regularly rocket past you. And, finally, your fuel consumption figures are a good deal better than they would be if you took the Spanish approach and regarded the speed limit as a guideline which doesn’t apply to you.

By the way, such is the pace of motorway construction in Spain, whenever you go on a long trip you inevitably come across at least one new motorway that wasn’t there the last time you passed that way. This adds more than passing interest as all major roads in Spain have two or three numbers [don’t ask] and the opening of a new road or a new stretch provides an opportunity to change one or more of these. Such fun.


I was nearly hit on a zebra crossing again today. Mind you, the damage would probably have been slight as the car was moving very slowly. I felt more amused than threatened, at the sight of the driver with his left arm dangling down outside the car and his right arm contorted round his head so that he could scratch his left ear. No wonder he was too preoccupied to see me.


Talking of driving, I was again almost hit broadsides today by a car that tried to overtake me as I was making a left turn I’d been indicating for 10 to 20 seconds. If I understood correctly, the response to my expressed irritation was that, as we were going round a bend, how could the driver be expected to know that there was a left turn round the corner and that my signal was, therefore, trustworthy.

My friend, Andrew, and I swap these ‘road stories’ with great relish. Which is just as well, as all females of my acquaintance detest them and make exaggerated gestures of boredom whenever I start to relate them. Needless to say, I ignore these.


Here’s a bit of information for those considering coming to live in the parish of Poio, on the fringes of Pontevedra – Will they fine me for driving insanely? Probably not. Will they fine me for not wearing a crash helmet and/or ignoring the noise regulations on a motor bike? Certainly not. Will they fine me for not wearing a safety belt in a car? Good gracious, no. Will they fine me for putting my car wheels on the pavement? They certainly will! And not just a few Euros either. How about 160 Euros, or 110 quid? Bitter, moi??

Talking of traffic offences, the government has just announced new measures aimed at reducing Spain’s appalling fatality count. Each driver will have a credit of 12 points and progressively lose these for specific offences. One of these will be ‘Going backwards on a motorway [freeway]’. Even in Spain it is rare to see a car coming towards you at 120kph in reverse so I assume this is the offence of backing down the hard shoulder to get to the exit road you missed as you sailed by at 180. In contrast, this is not at all rare.


Another horrendous local road accident involving teenagers. Seven of them – all from the same family group – were travelling in a small car which left the road and hit a tree. Two of them died and three of them are in negotiation with the Grim Reaper. As ever, the accident took place around 5.30am, when they were returning from the disco. And, as so often, the cause of the accident is ‘as yet undetermined but believed to be high speed’. Road fatalities are high in Spain and it is sadder than sad that one of the main factors is the willingness of parents to subsidise their adult children for years, so allowing them to buy high-powered cars that they could otherwise not afford. Other factors are the macho culture, all-night partying and the apparent unwillingness of the police to crack down both on drunken driving and the failure to obtain a licence, especially in tourist areas. It came as no surprise to read no one in the car was wearing a seat belt, the law on which might as well not exist, for all the difference it seems to make.


It’s official – the main causes of road accidents in Spain are 1. ‘Inappropriate speed’ and 2. ‘Driver distraction’. The latter could be almost anything, of course, but my 3 choices would one or more of:- a. using a mobile phone with your left hand; b. smoking with your right hand; and c. turning round to talk to someone in the back seat. Then again, it could be juggling 3 to 5 tennis balls and/or making love. I feel we should be better informed.


It regularly amazes me just how much influence this blog exerts. Less than 24 hours after I criticised the local police for their failure, inter alia, to control speeding drivers, they have announced new measures to do just this. They will be setting up radar checks in sequence, in order to catch the clever bastards who slow down when they see the cop with the gun and then speed up again. I can’t help feeling this might have been more successful if they hadn’t told us in advance about their new strategy.


The traffic police here appear to be very ready to book people for things which fall outside a wide concept of ‘fun’ but fight shy of penalising people for stupidities which fall within it. The former include such innocuous things as not having two triangles, a spare set of bulbs and/or a luminous jacket in your car. And the long list of the latter includes such genuinely dangerous things as driving stupidly fast, driving while drunk, driving with kids in your lap, driving while talking on your mobile phone, riding a motor scooter with the silencer silenced, etc., etc. OK, the last one isn’t really very dangerous but it’s bloody annoying. If you’re Spanish and this paragraph irritates you, feel free to post a comment with your own explanation for this bizarre dichotomy.


My survey of 3 year olds loose in a car has been nothing short of a disaster. In over a week, I haven’t seen a single instance. This is not, I must stress, because all 3 year olds – in accordance with the new law - are now well strapped into special seats; it is because I haven’t seen a single 3 year old in a car during this period. It is as if all the parents, warned of police checks, have decided to leave their toddlers with the grandparents while they head off for the beach. As and although the heat is on, as it were.


Today I saw my first 3 year old in a car. And it was strapped in too. Interestingly, it was in a marulo [chav] car.


The national Traffic Police are reported to be unhappy that they’re being pressurised by the politicians to test more drivers and issue more fines for drunken driving. Ignoble, I suppose. Meanwhile, closer to home the local traffic police have taken up the call for more fines with abandon, though admittedly only for bad parking. Last night we saw them towing and booking all the BMWs, Mercedes and Audis parked on the pavement in the streets around the big private club on this side of the river. It was the night of the debutantes’ ball - a big occasion in the town - and this police action is, I suspect, totally without precedent. There must be a chance that some of the car owners are not friends of the Chief of Police and so will have to cough up. This makes me feel better about the low chances of success of our appeal against our own parking fine of a couple of months ago. It shouldn’t but it does.


I’ve begun to collate the various responses from drivers who are forced to brake when I have the temerity to continue beyond the middle of the zebra crossing onto ‘their’ side. These range from an angry stare to a semi-apologetic raise of the hand, taking in various facial contortions and an embarrassed sort of lip pout along the way. On a more serious note, I am a little concerned that, if I maintain this foolhardy policy of insisting on my rights, I am going to end up with at least a couple of broken knees.


Here’s a nice wrinkle of Spanish traffic law – if you get stopped for not wearing your seat belt, you will be fined 90 Euros. If you see the police patrol looming up, pull over and put on your belt but are observed doing this by the patrol, you will be fined 180 Euros. Now, if they were to apply this logic to the drivers who slow down for a speed trap indicated on the map which the police have been obliged to publish and then speed up again….. I guess they could abolish income tax, for a start.

Which reminds me…. I have been advised that the traffic police are not obliged to put a copy of a parking ticket on your car ‘in case, for example, it rains or blows away’. They can just send you a notice of fine three months later and defy you to do anything other than pay up. Seems just a tad open to abuse to me. I am considering the International Court of Justice in the Hague but can’t seem to find their number in the Pontevedra phone book.


The Vigo council has astonished us by announcing that a survey shows that the widespread double and triple parking in the city increases travel times by 60 per cent. Who’d have thought it?


On a note which is both more prosaic and Spanish, I had one of my regular run-ins with a car on a zebra crossing tonight. What made this one special was that it was a police car. Parked half on the crossing and half off, the driver waved me on with an air of irritation which suggested it was entirely my fault. Naturally.


Here’s a capillary conundrum, with a big prize for the first person with the right answer – What is it that the Spanish have a genius for doing within a hair’s breadth and always without turning a hair? Post your suggestions below, please.


There were a number of replies to the Capillary Conundrum of earlier this week. And this number, to be specific, was one. The suggestion was Near misses on pedestrian crossings? This is very close to the right answer but, sadly, not quite close enough to win the enormous prize. This will now be held over. The correct answer was Cut across each other’s trajectory. Which, being pedantic, they don’t actually do on zebra crossings. My Spanish friend, Manoel, discourses on this aspect of Spanish life in his most recent blog at theremon.blogspot.com


The police in Zarragoza yesterday arrested 68 drivers who were bent on racing between Benidorm and London - in emulation, I suppose, of Burt Reynolds in the 70s movie Cannonball[?]. But with their own hair. And not quite so bent.

Mind you, this is nothing compared with one of our home-grown heroes. On Sunday night the police in Vigo arrested a man for driving at very high speeds through the centre of the city. I say ‘arrested’ but what actually happened is that they pulled him out of his wrecked car after he had finally shunted it into three others. His terrified passenger claimed that he’d pleaded with him to slow down after he had seen the needle go above 190kph, or 119mph. Before that it was just fun, presumably.


There was a wedding at the big private club down the road the other day. The entrance is in a one-way street but this didn’t stop a fair proportion of the guests driving down it the wrong way so that they could secure a parking place near the entrance. In fact, I met one as I was heading the right way. But being a woman – and a lady – she smiled charmingly and then graciously reversed to the main road. If it had been a man, we might still be there now.


The local police have announced that in November they are going to be targeting people not wearing belts in cars. More specifically, they have a quota to fill. I guess that, once this is achieved, things can return to their lackadaisical normal. Until the next advance warning. Or even beyond, if this relates to crash helmets


The government has announced the introduction of a points-based driving licence system. As of mid 2005, offences will result in a loss of ‘credits’ until the trigger point is reached and your licence is lost. This follows similar measures in many other EU countries and is designed to reduce the high mortality rate on Spanish roads, some 5,400 souls last year for example. Both the major dailies have welcomed this but with reservations. El Mundo points out the theory is one thing but the practice another. Investment needs to go into the computers that will make the system workable and the driver retraining schemes that underpin it.


As of today, people with a car driving licence can also drive a motorbike up to 125cc without the need for passing any theory or practical test. This is expected to do wonders for the sales of bikes – currently in the doldrums – but rather less for the road traffic statistics. Especially as the current fashion for crash helmets is to wear them with the chin guard across your brow. As if you had a small bee hive on the back of your head.


There was a report in yesterday’s papers about a couple arrested for leaving two kids in their car when they went off to a bar. This sort of things happens in other countries as well, of course. But I did like the very Spanish aspect of this particular incidence; the parents left the car parked on a zebra crossing. Talk about cocking a snook. Or snoot, as it’s apparently become in the USA. No wonder Word’s spellcheck doesn’t recognise it.



The police have announced one of their annual campaigns, this time against uninsured motorists. Time to keep these vehicles off the road for a while, then. Meanwhile, there was another depressing accident outside Pontevedra this week. Two young people died when their car hit a retaining wall at the side of the road. It was 4 in the afternoon, the weather perfect and no other car was involved. Some evidence, one might have thought, that the police should do more to curb the high speeds on Spain’s dangerously bendy motorways.


Driving across the bridge into town, I usually take Avenida de Colón. This is not, as you might think, Avenue of the Lower Intestine, but Avenue of Columbus. It all depends on the accent. Anyway, although it glories in five lines, these are invariably reduced to just one by legal and illegal parking. So it’s lucky it’s a one-way street. However, as I meandered along it last night, I met a car coming the other way. Happily, the driver had his emergency lights on and in Spain this makes everything perfectly OK. The universal belief is that, paradoxically, the flashing amber lights render the car non-existent.


There was a report over the weekend that a national police campaign had established that 97% of drivers were found to be complying with the safety belt law. Is it any wonder that the Spanish have difficulty in believing any statistics unless they are given to a [totally specious] three places of decimals?


Driving out to Toledo from Madrid on Saturday, we ran into a lengthy traffic jam. At the end of this stood 2 policemen, frantically urging drivers to accelerate now they had the opportunity. For Spanish drivers, this is about as necessary as putting a sign for mosquitoes on your big toe reading “Please bite here”.


This year’s King Canute Award goes to Spain’s Minister for Equality. She has demanded that toy manufacturers stop advertising their Christmas wares on the basis of stereotypical gender models. I would have thought there were better ways of tackling the issues of this macho society than asking companies to promote dolls to boys. My preference would be to ban women from smoking and driving aggressively. But I hope this doesn’t sound too macho. I would ban men as well.

The authorities in Spain can show remarkable indulgence towards drivers who break the law, even those who regularly drive over the limit or without a licence. A man in Girona who has previously had his licence withdrawn a mere 6 times has finally managed to kill a pedestrian and has now been jailed for drunken driving.


The police have said they’re going to stop their ludicrous practice of only testing for drunken drivers at known times and in known spots and take a more serious approach to the problem.

I blame it all on the EU. But, then, I blame everything on the EU.


The Galician police have announced that a recent series of spot checks netted only 167 people over the alcohol limit. As this was out of more than 10,000 drivers randomly tested, I assume they did most of the checking outside the churches on Sunday evenings.


Spain has come late to campaigns against drunken drivers so it’s not too surprising that the law is still being developed. The Constitutional Court has found for a man who was prosecuted for being three times over the legal limit. They took the view that one has to be more than four times over the limit for this alone to be incontrovertible proof that an offence has been committed. This is equivalent to 4 glasses of wine. Below this, the police have to obtain evidence that ‘one’s capacity to drive has actually been affected’. I guess the case law will develop along the lines of standing one one’s leg and or reciting the alphabet backwards. In other words, just the sort of thing that the breathalyser was supposed to dispense with. But that’s Spain.


In the pre-dawn dark of this morning, I flashed at an oncoming car, to tell the driver that he didn’t have his lights on. Rather to my surprise, he responded immediately. But, then, I suppose one should expect this of a police car. Especially one belonging to the Traffic Branch.


The government and car drivers are locked in recriminations about responsibility for the widespread chaos brought by snow storms which hit most of Spain on 26th December. The drivers felt that the government should have been more prepared. The official response to this was that drivers should not have gone on the road in bad weather. There seemed to be an implied rider to this along the lines of … ‘as you know we are incompetent and will have all the snow ploughs in the wrong place’. An editorial in El Mundo asked why the arrival of bad weather was always such a tremendous surprise both to the authorities and to the national train company. Sounds familiar.

2005

Driving into the railway station car park yesterday, I noticed this plea, hand-painted across the barrier - Don’t take up two spaces. I suspect the next one will be Don’t park across the access lanes. These are strategically placed every 50 metres or so down the length of the car park, to allow you to exit without driving down to the end and back. Of course, neither injunction will have any effect whatsoever.


Here’s something to bear in mind if you’re thinking of driving in Spain – 1.7million cars aren’t insured. And 1.5million of these are being driven by someone with a phone to his or her ear.


The government has issued more information about the forthcoming ‘points-based’ system of driving licences. If I’ve got this right, drivers who don’t commit any offences over a 3 year period will gain points additional to the 12 we’re all going to start with. As yet, I don’t know whether this means that I would now have 126 points on my licence and could commit absolute mayhem for several years before running the risk of losing my licence. Doubtless someone will make things clear pretty soon.


The politicians have been chipping away at the Bill introducing Spain’s points-based driving licence system. There is now a range of deductions for offences such as driving above the alcohol limit, exceeding 146kph, not wearing a safety belt and talking on a mobile phone. So far, though, I haven’t seen any reference to the penalty for doing all of these at the same time. By the way, 146kph is just above 90mph and comfortably exceeds the nominal limit of 120.


One of the local papers pointed out today that, whereas many other parts of Spain are connected to Madrid by high speed trains, getting there from La Coruña in Galicia still takes the almost 9 hours it took 25 years ago. I guess this says something about the relative importance of the still-rather-isolated North West. The article stressed that one can get to Madrid in less than half this time by car, assuming an average speed of 140kph. As mentioned yesterday, getting copped doing this speed will shortly lose you several points from your driving licence, something which the paper seemed to regard as quite irrelevant.


In recent months, the Spanish authorities have given the impression of taking traffic infractions rather more seriously than in the past. Last week’s announcement – just ahead of the long holiday week – was that there would be a total of 132 unmarked police cars patrolling the highways, on the look-out for those speeding, driving without belts, talking on their phones, etc.

Galicia’s share of these cars is 17. This compares with only 2 or 3 in nearby Asturias and Cantabria and is second only to Castile and Andalucia, which are very much larger. I haven’t seen any explanation for this but it certainly fits with the fact that insurance premiums here are higher than elsewhere. By the way, one of the unmarked cars was pictured in the press, complete with registration number.


Well, I arrived back in Pontevedra in the early hours of this morning, having driven from Liverpool over three days. Almost my first thought on [happily] arriving back in Spain was that Spanish driving was more, shall we say, competitive than that of both France and the UK. So I wasn’t too surprised to later see an electronic sign above the road, exhorting drivers not to treat the autopista as a racing circuit. Fat chance. God help us if the young Spaniard, Alonso, builds on early success and goes on to win the Formula 1 championship this year.


The standard of driving in France seems to have improved considerably since my last experience 5 years ago. This must be down to the draconian new laws centred on the sort of points-based system currently being diluted in the Spanish parliament. It was a nice change to lose the flashing-idiots-up-the-bum so common in Spain, as well as the drivers who go past at 160-180 kph regardless of the conditions.


I read last night of a young man being prosecuted for driving down the wrong side of the A6 autopista while blind drunk - at 5.30 in the afternoon. He was jailed for 6 months and had his licence withdrawn for 15 months. Or 9, in practice.


Parliament has now finalised the points-based driving licence system that’s aimed at reducing Spain’s high road mortality rate. The number of offences has been reduced from 45 to 31 and a table of penalties established. My first impression is that you’d need an IQ of at least 150 to get your head around this but the one thing that does seem clear is that it will remain impossible to lose your licence unless you are caught at least twice on the same day driving at 180kph with a bottle of Rioja in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. As expected, the law enshrines the principle that you need to be doing 150kph on an autopista before you risk losing even a quarter of the points you started with. I guess if you then drive off at 150 you might just lose a few more. But you need to be doing 180kph [113mph] to lose half your points. The most worrying comment I’ve read was that the highest penalties are reserved for “kamikaze” drivers. I don’t know what the definition is but, if you’re planning to drive on Spanish roads, you’ve been warned.


As I approach roundabouts [circles], I frequently wonder how on earth the driver in front passed his or her test. Now I know that it’s quite possible they didn’t. The police have arrested driving school principals all across the country, having discovered a nationwide fraud aimed at helping those with more cash than intelligence to sail through at least the theory exam. This centred on the simple ruse of sending answers to mobile phones. Given this morality, it’s easy to imagine some impersonation going on for the practical exam.


There’s a special driving school in Pontevedra for those having difficulty acquiring the knowledge needed for the theory exam. A newspaper article today helpfully explained that students with ‘learning difficulties’ included illiterates, dyslexics, immigrants and gypsies. Intriguingly, the owner tells us that the last mentioned often arrive late because they’ve had difficulty parking their cars. “They can all drive’, she added “but they can’t understand the signs and have difficulty with sentences beginning ‘You can’t…’”. As there are two permanent gypsy encampments on my side of the river, I can’t say any of this came as much as a surprise. Except the bit about them wanting to pass the exam.


Our local council has installed speed bumps at the bottom of the hill, on a short stretch of windy road where – ironically – I’ve never seen any reckless driving. Stupidly dangerous parking, yes. But reckless driving, no. As is the norm here, the bumps at either end are only on one side of the road. This has the predictable consequence of inviting drivers to swerve to the other side to avoid braking. As both of the single obstacles are just before bends, I confidently predict an increase in the accident rate.


You think you’ve seen everything on a motorway but then, as you’re driving along the only open lane at a reduced speed of 80kph, the driver in front decides to overtake the car ahead of him by weaving in and out of the cones marking off the closed lane. Five minutes after this, I was passed by one of those tiny Smart cars doing at least 140kph. Made my day.


More reports about mini motor-bikes being impounded. And lots of reasons being given as to why they need to be removed from the market. None of these comes anywhere near ‘because they’re very fast and intrinsically dangerous for the kids they’re aimed at’. Just as road accidents are never attributed to ‘bad driving’.


One of our local papers advised today that the car driver most likely to be involved in a serious accident in Spain is male, under 22, recently qualified and sitting behind the wheel of a powerful car. Rather more surprising was the rider that there are more of these in Galicia than elsewhere. Not males under 22, that is, but young men driving powerful cars. As the region is relatively poor, my guess would be this is not unconnected with the importation of high-value powders along the cove-rich coast.


Having written in April that French driving seemed to me to be much improved, I feel I have the right now to say the worst example yesterday of stupidly aggressive, up-your-exhaust pipe driving came from a car with French plates. This doesn’t mean the driver was French, of course, but I think I’m entitled to my suspicions. I often wonder whether the French really appreciate just how the rest of the world sees them. A friend of Faye’s staying with us recently said she dealt regularly with 26 subsidiaries of her London employer and only ever had difficulties with the French company. This might have come as a surprise if I hadn’t heard something similar on numerous occasions in 30 years of business.

Driving out of Madrid this morning, it took a mere 5 or 7 minutes to get from the city centre to the motorway for Galicia on the western outskirts. Likewise, it was comparatively easy getting into Madrid last Wednesday evening. I wonder how many great capital cities you could say this about. Something of a contrast, though, with this evening, when the mass return from August holidays caused the usual huge jams. On a point of detail, it was interesting to see this morning, when driving through road works, that a significant percentage of drivers clearly thought there was a 1 before the 80 on the temporary speed limit signs.

Spain is a place where rules are generally regarded as breakable and where safety is accorded a lower importance than elsewhere. These sentiments can and do overlap, with predictable consequences for such intrinsically hazardous activities as driving or working in the construction industry. Much the same can be said of leisure pursuits.


So, young Alonso moved one step nearer to the Formula 1 championship today. And we all moved closer to the day when every Spanish male proudly and respectfully adds 20 or 30 kph to his normal driving speed. What joy awaits us.


20% of Galician drivers are reported to have said they completely ignore road signs when driving in places they’re familiar with. And 30% of Galician drivers believe there should be more road signs. One assumes – though without great conviction – that these are different people.


So, Fernando Alonso duly assured himself today of the Formula 1 championship. There was little else on the radio as I was driving home tonight and, when the race was over, we were treated to the Asturian ‘national’ anthem played on bagpipes. Asturias is next to Galicia and I go there from time to time, if only to try to see the lovely Leticia’s sister. But I’ll now be steering well clear of the place until driving there returns to normal levels of lunacy.


Brussels has proposed speed limits be harmonised throughout Europe. The maximum would be 110kph [70mph], compared with the current 120 in Spain, 130 in France and God-knows-what in Germany. This, of course, is aimed at saving lives but the initial consequence in Spain would surely be even more drivers regularly breaking the law. The relevant minister on TV this morning naturally declined to be drawn into the question of whether Spanish drivers were worse than elsewhere. As he talked, though, the screen was showing a sequence of police chopper shots of astonishingly stupid driving.

Given my regular criticisms of Spanish driving, I must record the first incidence [as far as I can recall] of a considerate driver behind me slowing down because he realised a truck coming down a slip road was about to force me into his lane. And, yes, it was a male driver. Probably Fernando Alonso. He doesn’t need to prove what a great driver he is.

In a survey of ‘safe driving’ in 13 EU countries, Spain came 12th. But there’s no place for smugness; the UK came 11th. Mind you, Portugal came in the top 3 and, if you’ve ever driven there, you’ll know this is a nonsense as an indication of your likelihood of surviving on the country’s roads. Some clue to the structure of the survey came from a comment in El Pais that the UK – despite the lowest accident rates in the EU – had suffered because it’s not compulsory there to carry 2 triangles. Nor a full set of light bulbs and a luminous jacket, I guess.


Two more ‘kamikaze’ drivers were arrested this week in Galicia. Both were driving the wrong way down the autopista and both, of course, were over the drink limit. Six times over in one case. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, though in one case several cars were written off before the imbecile was brought to a stop. By himself, of course.


I’m obliged to my friend Andrew for the sight of a local driving school which rejoices in the name of ‘Chaos’.


An article in one of the local papers today was headlined Those Cursed Roundabouts and its theme was the high number of accidents on these new-fangled things. It ended with the peroration – Something must be done! I think I can safely say I speak for both Andrew and myself in suggesting that a good first step would be to teach all the driving instructors how to approach and exit them. Their pupils might just then stand a better chance of learning how to negotiate them. Then they could move on to the examiners, who currently seem to pass people who have absolutely no idea what to do when confronted with one.


I read today of a car crash yesterday in which a 31 year old local civil servant was killed in at 10.30 in the morning. As is often the case, the report said his car ‘swerved into a car coming the other way for reasons as yet unknown’. But, as he was young, male, Spanish and driving a powerful BMW on a wet, winding road, I think we can be excused for hazarding a guess that he was driving too fast. The good news is that he didn’t kill the driver coming the other way. Who could have been me, of course.


I’ve been adopted by a little dog which was either abandoned or lost in the forest behind my house. Astonishingly, the ever-jealous Ryan seems to have accepted it, though it is a bitch. This morning, as I was walking them up the hill, I was greeted by a couple driving down as if I were an old friend. As I didn’t know them from Adam, I assumed this was because they were dog lovers. I wasn’t far off: both the passenger and the driver had a small canine on their laps.


After the third instance in three days, it’s clear I’ve missed the announcement that it’s now compulsory to have a dog on your lap while driving a car in Pontevedra. Thank God for the little bitch from the forest who adopted me a few days ago: Ryan would have been far too heavy. Plus he would have tried to drive the car.


I’ve taken to peering into passing cars to see whether the driver is wearing a dog on his/her lap. I could get arrested soon but, meanwhile, I’m pleased to report none of the canines has been using a mobile phone while in the driving seat. Smarter than their owners, obviously. Or at least more law-abiding.

2006

Driving my daughters to Santiago airport today, I noted the autopista was – as ever - relatively free of traffic. Dwelling on the possibility this could be connected with the tolls that double the cost of the trip, it struck me that only the wealthier drivers take the autopistas. Everyone else – and most of the commercial traffic – takes the parallel National roads. What this means is that, via EU hand-outs, Northern European taxpayers of all levels have financed the greater speed and comfort of the Spanish elite. This is even more true of North Portugal, where the toll roads are virtually devoid of traffic. Perhaps things will change when Spanish per capita income is higher and tolls are lower. And pigs have learned to fly.


At 10am on New Year’s Day, a member of the national police in Tarragona – returning from an all-night party - drove into the back of a cyclist. He was later found to be more than 4 times over the alcohol limit. But at least he’ll be disciplined for his offence. Which is more than can be said for one of our local police chiefs, who makes a habit of driving into the back of vehicles after lunch. Or breakfast even.


An excellent question today from the Director General of the Traffic Ministry – If you kill someone when you are driving at 200kph[125mph], can it really be ‘involuntary homicide’?


Here in Galicia, the year has started badly on our roads. A total of 34 people have been killed so far. 50% of these were not wearing safety belts; and 50% - possibly the same people – were killed by trees and walls, after their cars had parted company with the road. Usually around 5am of a Saturday or Sunday morning, I imagine. A columnist in one of today’s local papers expressed the hope the imminent points-based penalty system will have some beneficial effect, given that [surviving] offenders will be sent for remedial lessons specific to their offence. Having seen how driving instructors take their pupils around roundabouts, I am rather less sanguine. He also put forward the view the authorities should stop concentrating on tougher penalties and invest more in making the roads safer. I was initially tempted to dismiss this as a variant of the oft-heard argument to the effect that, if all the roads were wide, flat and dead straight, everyone could drive at 180kph in complete safety. But, in the end, I decided it was sensibly pragmatic to admit one can’t stop indulgent Spanish parents financing the purchase of fatally fast cars for their offspring and so should concentrate on minimising the consequences. If this is really what he meant.


In a national survey this week, most regions in Spain showed 75% support for the imminent points-based driving licence and said they expected it to reduce mortality numbers. Here in Galicia, however, the statistics were reversed, with 70% of respondents being unsupportive, on the grounds it would achieve little or nothing. Other than the possibility somebody got a page upside down, I’m at a loss to explain this dichotomy. One thing’s for sure - it won’t do much for Galicia’s reputation for backwardness. Even if they are right.


A pretty normal week on the Galician roads – two men were arrested for driving the wrong way down the autopista and another for doing 260kph on the same road, albeit in the correct direction. This is a mere 163 miles per hour. So it’s a good job nothing was coming in the opposite direction. Or, indeed, just standing there.


Memories of the drive to Madrid today...

- Watching cars go past at 160kph in the mist and on a surface made greasy by the first rain in over 2 weeks

- Thinking that some of the drivers might actually turn out to have been driving as if there were no tomorrow

- Being almost fatally caught in a pincer movement by two trucks as I was moving from the A52 to the A6 near Benavente

- Being passed by a funeral car doing at least 160kph. Wondering whether the family of Fernando Alonso was now in the undertaking business. Or whether it was just one of that rare breed of car - the racing hearse

- Being overtaken by every single car, truck and bus as they all blithely ignored the 80kph limit in the extensive roadworks on the edge of Madrid

- Wondering whether there is any more boring job in the world than being an outrider for a very slow moving vehicle. Even the driver of the truck has a greater challenge than merely avoiding sleep

- Driving to within a kilometre or two of my daughter's city-centre flat at 120kph. In how many capital cities of the world can you do this?

- Remembering just how much I like Madrid


There were 44 deaths in the first 43 days of 2006 on the Galician roads. The latest incidence of the regular occurrence of a lone car hitting a magnetic tree was abnormal in a couple of ways. Firstly, the driver was a woman. Secondly, we didn’t get the standard ‘for reasons as yet undetermined’ comment about the cause of the accident. Here this was unreservedly attributed to the driver distracting herself by reaching for her phone. The police could draw this conclusion because there was a call registered at exactly the time of the crash. And because the dead woman’s hand was still insider her bag. Coincidentally, the government has today announced a massive hike in the penalty for using a phone when you are driving. Or any other electrical appliance. Vamos a ver.


The relevant government department is demanding gaol sentences for drivers who exceed the speed limit by more than 60kph. Or 38mph. For example, doing 68mph in a 30mph zone. Or 113mph on an autopista. A columnist in one of our local papers today wrote that there would be only a thin line between many thousands of Spanish motorists and a spell behind bars. He added this contrasted with Germany, where you can drive at any speed you like on the autobahns. Naturally, though, he didn’t comment on any differences in driving behaviour. So I am left wondering whether Germans also like to drive within centimetres of your exhaust pipe with their headlights and indicator on.


Another drunken ‘kamikaze’ driver was arrested on Tuesday, after driving 12km the wrong way down the A6 north of León in the small hours of the morning. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll surely know by now this is the time of day to stay well away from Spanish roads.


Someone has calculated that the proposed tightening of the traffic rules would mean 5,000 Galicians a year going to jail for doing 60kph more than the speed limit and/or driving at double the permitted alcohol level. But not for flouting the building regulations, I guess.


The headline in the local paper this morning had a mournfully familiar ring. An unlicensed 18 year old youth, driving a black sports saloon, killed 4 motorcyclists when overtaking at 140 on a 100kph road. He himself walked virtually uninjured from the carnage. But not his mother; she died when one of the bikes hit the passenger door. My guess is the youth lives at home and financed the car by not paying a bean for his keep. The wages of parental indulgence are often death in Spain, though it’s not usually one of the parents who pays the price. Except in life-long grief.


I felt a little guilty yesterday about labelling indulgent the parents of the 18 year old who killed 5 people in a road accident near Pontevedra on Friday. But today I discovered I hadn’t gone far enough. Rather than merely allowing him to use all his wages to buy a sports car, they’d actually bought it for him. And then allowed him to drive it without a licence. But this isn’t the most wondrous bit of information doing the rounds; despite the fact his dead mother had to be cut out of the passenger seat, the youth is said to have insisted he hadn’t been driving the car.


Conversation around the horrendous accident last week in which a local youth killed five people threw up the fact it’s not permitted in Spain for learner drivers to practice on public roads, even when accompanied by a qualified driver and displaying L plates. Indeed, even practising on private land needs police permission. Opinion is decided as to whether this is sensible or merely a sop to the numerous driving schools which everyone is thus forced to use.

It’s not only me who goes on about Spanish driving. Both El Mundo and El Pais have had hard-hitting editorials on the subject this week. Each of them dismissed the government’s recent campaign - ‘We can’t drive for you’ – as patently ineffective and called for more action against drunken and high-speed driving. And both expressed hope the imminent new points-based system will have the same effect as measures taken in the neighbouring countries of France and Portugal. And when people start making unfavourable comparisons with Portugal you know things are really serious in Spain.

Meanwhile, I actually had to shout and wave my hands in the middle of a zebra crossing today to make a car stop for me. But at least the driver looked sheepish and apologetic. Once her face was turned towards the front and she could see me in front of her bonnet. [Or ‘hood’, to American readers.]

And to maintain the driving theme until the end of this post, my friend Andrew told me today of an incident on his way to the office yesterday, when a driver brought the traffic to a halt on a one-lane road and then switched on his emergency lights. Andrew naturally thought he’d broken down, until he saw him spread a map across his steering wheel. . .

On second thoughts, this might fit better under the heading of individualismo than driving.


Acedre has written to say I’ve neglected to add that drivers in the USA are also well-mannered and drive calmly, unlike in Galicia. That may well be so but, as an American reader advised last year, the mortality on the roads there is even higher than in Spain. Excessive speed and drunken driving are said to be the main causes there as well.


I’ve decided to institute a Saturday section about the worst driving incident of the week. As he does more driving than me, I expect most citations to come - like this one – from my friend Andrew. Driving to his bodega, he was passed by a car from one of our numerous driving schools. As ever, it contained the instructor and 3 or 4 pupils. In a 60kph area, it overtook him at 100 and then undertook a truck. Aptly, the school was named ‘Grand Prix’.


It’ll be tough deciding on the prize driving incident of the week. It’s only Tuesday and already Andrew has faced a car coming round the corner on 2 wheels and I’ve narrowly avoided hitting a van which pulled straight out in front of me at a T-junction. So I think I’ll just abandon the idea as it seems to be tempting fate. I’d like to live until at least Saturday.


Tougher new penalties for traffic offences come into force next week. Certain stupidities – e. g. driving at 90kph in a 50kph zone – will carry a mandatory jail sentence. This has naturally led to speculation that 10 to 20% of Spain’s population will be languishing in prison by the end of the year. I certainly hope this includes the imbecile who crashed doing 130 on one such road in Pontevedra a few nights ago.


Yesterday saw not only the introduction of the new points-based driving licence but also a ‘drastic reduction in speeding and drink-driving’. I guess this was to be expected, at least as an initial response to the much increased possibility of a jail sentence.


It seems I was too quick in being positive about the weekend’s road fatalities. Things deteriorated during the second half of Sunday and, in the event, deaths were only fractionally down on last year. This was despite the fact ‘displacements’ were well down. However, the number of people stopped for infractions was well up and the – not-terribly-surprising statistics – show that 28% were for driving over the alcohol limit, 23% for excess speed, 17% for not wearing a safety belt and 5% for using a mobile phone. Plus 1% for all of these at the same time. Not really; I made the last one up. Which is not to say it didn’t happen, of course.


One gets used to things being left until the last moment in Spain but sometimes it still surprises. Despite having had two years to prepare for it, only two of the country’s 1500 municipalities have taken steps to ensure they can operate the new points-based driving licence which came into force last weekend. So it’ll presumably be chaos for a while, as it was when Terminal 4 opened at Madrid airport earlier this year.


I mentioned the other day that home-grown commentators could be far more critical than I am. Right on cue, the President of an organisation called Associated European Motorists has dismissed the newly-introduced points-based driving system as a ‘typically Spanish’ bodge. He says it stands little hope of effecting the significant reduction in mortalities achieved elsewhere, as the loss of points will not be regarded as a sanction. Instead, acquiring the points will merely be seen as a requirement equivalent to good eyesight or good mental health. I’m not sure I get this contrast but I do understand his point that the Spanish model is nothing like that already adopted in 11 other EU countries. And I do hope he’s wrong, especially as the weekend brought its usual crop of teenagers slaughtered in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday mornings.


Car insurance here costs 38% more than in Aragón, the cheapest region of Spain. And in Pontevedra it’s double that of Teruel. But the good news is that, against the Spanish average, it’s only 19% more. Contributory factors, as ever, are said to be more rain, higher population density and inferior roads. Nothing to do with bad driving. Or young people driving powerful cars they couldn’t possibly afford if they didn’t live at home, paying nothing towards their keep.


There was a conversation on the radio today between a reporter and someone senior in the Traffic ministry about the positive effects of the new driving regulations. The final question was about problems arising from the large number of tourists driving round the country in summer. The astonishingly honest answer almost caused me to swerve – “Well, the truth is the visitors don’t cause any problems. But they certainly suffer some. Most of them come from countries where drivers show consideration for others. Here, of course, we’re more individualistic and think of no one but ourselves when we drive”. I hadn’t noticed.


The rest of Spain is said to regard Galicians as rather stupid and stubborn. This is unfair, though if you’ve tried to buy property up in the hills here you might not think so. And you might just want to add ‘greedy’ to the list. But I digress. Before the new traffic regulations came into force in July, a surprisingly high percentage of Galicians said they didn’t think they’d change their driving habits as a result. This can’t have helped their nationwide image. But even more damage must have been caused by the statistics of the first month of operation. Galicia was the only place in Spain where road deaths didn’t fall at all And now the Department of Traffic is to introduce a ‘Special Plan’ to deal with those recalcitrant Gallegos. One can only hope it is successful, whilst one is still alive and capable of expressing an aspiration.


Spain recently introduced a points-based driving licence system. Usually this means offences lead to negative points on your licence but the Spanish version is the other way round. You start with 12 positive points and progressively lose them until your licence is suspended. You can ‘earn’ them back but now comes news that, if you don’t want to do this, you can do a swap to get them back. Though not legally of course. This works best, I’m told, when you have a family member who has a licence but doesn’t do much driving. You get them to appear in court and claim they, not you, were driving the offending car. Thus, you preserve your points and they lose some of theirs. Another option is to do business with an obliging stranger, at 400 euros a point. If you want to see how this works, Google carnet puntos comprar. Initially, I wondered whether this could only done with a positive-points-based system but I guess you could arrange the same perjury and perversion of justice under the usual system as well. Nice to think people are happy to profit from allowing some maniac to stay on the road.


A reader has advised that the stories of driving licence points being sold is an urban myth. This was also reported in today’s press. I certainly hope so.


It’s finally been confirmed the driving schools here instruct their pupils that, if they’re entering a two-lane roundabout [circle] and turning left, they must stay in the right, outside lane. And not enter the logical left lane adjacent to the roundabout. The obvious mad aspect of this rule is that it means drivers turning left will cross in front of those going straight on. The not-so-obvious aspect is that, if you take it to its logical conclusion, no driver would ever use the inner lane. Think about it.


Whenever I say something is ‘typically Spanish’, I get angry emails demanding that I explain exactly how. Well, undaunted, here is another sad example . . . A young man of 21 driving on a fast national road sees his 22 year old friend coming the other way, driving his new car. He decides to swerve a little into his path as a joke. The manoeuvre goes wrong and there is a head-on collision. Both of them, plus a passenger, are killed. This, anyway, is the belief of the police, since no one is around to give a better explanation for a bizarre accident on a straight road.


The Voz de Galicia confirmed today the selling of driving licence points is not an urban myth and claims the price can reach 600 euros a point. It also talked of the practice of family members assuming responsibility for the offences of others, citing the case of an 80 year old woman who turned up at the police station and insisted it was she who’d been clocked at 200kph in a powerful Audi. They didn’t believe her but I hope I’m treated with more respect when it’s my turn. Even if I have been going at this speed the wrong way down an autopista. Age surely brings a few privileges.


Which reminds me – the pass rate for the driving theory test in Pontevedra recently registered an impressive rise from 50 to 70%. This, though, was not because the students got better at it. It stemmed from the removal of ‘the tricky questions’. I imagine these included ‘Where should you not park?’; ‘Should you stop for pedestrians on crossings?’; and ‘In which lane should you go round a roundabout?’


Mr Miguel Ángel Medina González is something of a celebrity in Spain. He was the first person in the country to have his driving licence suspended after losing all 12 points on it since June. And yesterday he was caught at the wheel with alcohol levels at twice the legal limit. I guess it was to be expected from someone with his regard for the law that he said it would make no difference to him if the courts deducted another 14 points from his licence. It takes a lot to get sent to prison for driving offences in Spain but Señor Medina González finally managed it.


At 6.40 last Sunday morning, two young men in their 20s left a disco and drove off homewards. Shortly after, the car veered from the road and hit a house, killing both of them. The speedometer shattered at 210kph [131mph] and neither of them had been wearing seatbelts. The driver was well known for his dangerous driving and had already written off three cars. In fact, he’d narrowly survived death only a year previously, in another serious accident. But, as the son of the local mayor, he had not been banned. The passenger was also “a member of a well-known Betanzos family”. Both of them lived with their parents and the driver almost certainly financed his fast car and his all-night drinking by paying nothing for his keep.


Galicia has about 8% of Spain’s population but, in a recent police campaign, provided 15% of those prosecuted for driving without using safety belts or putting their kids in child seats. No wonder our insurance is higher than elsewhere. My Galician friends feel this shows they’re even more individualist and anarchistic than other Spaniards. Maybe but I can’t help feeling it enhances their reputation for being rather dense.


One of the reasons I left the UK was the parlous state of the transport system there. So the following comments in a UK newspaper touched a chord:-
Ten years ago, Labour came to power with great intentions. They promised change and an integrated transport policy. Nine years and eight major transport strategy documents later, things are getting worse not better.. . Britain has ground to a standstill, with traffic queues stretching and train fares soaring.

This is disturbing but I’ll try to avoid schadenfreude next time I’m driving down an EU-funded empty motorway to Madrid or wherever.


The Minister for road traffic safety says there’ll soon be tougher measures against motorists who persistently offend. Well, let’s hope so. It’s a constant puzzle to me that the law here seems incapable of [or averse to] dealing with these. The latest case is of a drunk who terrified people in Pontevedra’s pedestrianised areas this week. He’d previously had his licence withdrawn four times for driving above the limit but was still behind the wheel. Sort of.


There was a letter to one of the national papers the other day, complaining that the Chinese don’t stick to the shop-opening laws. I don’t know why but it always amuses me to hear Spaniards criticising other people for not obeying rules. And my biggest thrill comes at road junctions or roundabouts when someone blows their horn at my bad driving, acquired in quick-or-dead Teheran.


The Spanish supreme court yesterday quashed the conviction of a driver who’d been prosecuted for being almost 5 times over the alcohol limit. Hard as it is to believe, the grounds were that the police had failed to determine whether this actually impaired his driving capability. The relevant minister says changes under an imminent new law will close this loophole. Not before time, one would have thought.


Given the antics of the other sex, it’s ironic that the first motorcyclist to be banned from driving under Spain’s recently tightened traffic laws is a young woman from Ciudad Real. Impressively, she managed to lose all the points on her licence in one fell swoop by ‘ignoring officers’ signals, failing to stop at a junction and not wearing a helmet’. I suspect a sex change.