Spain Prods Drivers to Exercise Some Restraint on Roads

Driving in Spain is anything but dull. Motorists tailgate at 80 mph, switch lanes abruptly to grab a car-length edge and double park as if the world were one big garage.

But a strict new penalty system is curbing Spaniards’ roguish behavior behind the wheel, at least for now. Car-clogged streets and highways -- symbols of Spain’s transformation from backwater to dynamo in one generation -- are no longer playgrounds for speedsters.

The government says traffic deaths are down 25% since a points-based driving license system took effect July 1, bringing the world’s second most popular tourist destination in line with other countries in Europe and elsewhere that adopted such arrangements years ago.

The overseers of Spain’s overworked highway system acknowledge it is too early to draw firm conclusions. They say many drivers may have been scared by the heightened risk of losing their license but will revert to nonchalant motoring as the shock factor wears off.

But so far the busy roads of Spain seem safer, said Javier Villalba, a senior official at the General Traffic Directorate, part of the Interior Ministry.

“People are driving slower than they did ... ,” he said in an interview. “This is something we observe objectively when we calculate speeds monitored by radar.”

Under the new system, drivers are assigned 12 points each with their licenses. For each infraction, along with the traditional fine and possible license suspension for serious mistakes, they lose points. If the number falls to zero, they lose the license for six months.

Drunk driving costs up to six points, talking on a cellphone is worth three and throwing a cigarette butt out the window -- a source of forest fires in bone-dry summers -- carries a four-point punishment.

The program is the latest thrust by an activist Socialist government that has legislated social changes on everything from smoking in the workplace (it is now banned) to gay marriage (it is now legal).

Spaniards seem to like the idea of safer roads, even if some have to be prodded into it.

Cristina Gomez, a 37-year-old theater costume designer, said she was going along with the new rules, buckling up and ignoring her cellphone while driving, but she considered the program misguided.

The government should instead lower speed limits and crack down harder on drunk driving, she said.

And for that matter, why let manufacturers sell cars that can do 125 mph if that speed is off limits? “It does not make sense,” she said.

So how badly do Spaniards drive on the nation’s roads, where the speed limit is 75 mph on the fastest highways?

The European Union’s statistics office says Spain recorded 113 traffic fatalities per million inhabitants in 2004, the last year for which complete figures are available. The average for the 25-nation bloc was 95. Countries with the lowest rates included the Netherlands (50), Sweden (54) and Britain (56).

By comparison, the number of highway deaths in the U.S. in 2004 was 145 per million inhabitants, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Among the original 15 members of the bloc, only Portugal and Greece had worse records than Spain. Most new members from Eastern Europe also had higher rates than Spain.

Silvia Puras, 18, said she had seen people traveling 100 mph to 115 mph. “As they pass, you cannot even see them,” she said.

But it’s clear people are driving more carefully now, she said. “They don’t do as many stupid things as they used to.”

Antonio Lucas, spokesman for the Royal Spanish Automobile Club, says the country’s drivers are no worse than elsewhere in Europe, particularly those in Italy, where the speed limit on three-lane highways is nearly 95 mph, or in Germany, whose autobahn superhighways generally have no limit.

The problem here, he says -- and Villalba agrees -- is that as Spain’s car culture experienced rapid growth, its drivers’ level of highway safety awareness failed to keep pace.

“It is not so much that Spain is like the Wild West. The Spanish driver thinks he always drives well; it is the others who drive poorly,” he said.

Spanish highways reflect the nation’s explosive economic expansion in the generation since it emerged from decades of isolation under the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, who died in 1975.

The country now boasts the world’s eighth-largest economy, and a fleet of 26 million vehicles on its roads, compared with 8 million in 1979. That is an increase of 225%, while the population grew just 19%, to 44 million.

Villalba says Spain’s drivers need to improve their civic mindedness when they are on the road.

“When a person from another country comes here, say European or American, they probably notice a difference in the way people drive,” he said. “Our goal is gradually to get close to the standard of developed countries, such as the average of the European Union or U.S. figures.”