speed limit in Spain

AC COBRA - DREAM DRIVING IN SPAIN!

Well, this has come as a bit of a shock!  The Spanish government is reducing the maximum speed limit in Spain from its current 120 kms an hour to 110 kms per hour 68 mph).  This will be imposed from the 7^th March this year – so beware!

The Spanish government is reducing the speed limit in Spain to save the country money, given the current high price of oil.  Evidently, every increase of 10 Euros for a barrel of oil results in Spain paying another 6 billion Euros annually for its energy costs.

Needless to say, this reducing of the maximum speed limit is contentious, despite the government lowering some rail costs by 5% to encourage people to use public transport rather than their cars.

Certainly, I am a little dubious about the benefits of reducing the speed limit in Spain and I do wonder whether this is not from the abc school of non-lateral thinking?  After all, has anyone computed the costs of labour lost by people driving 10 kms per hour slower – and what about the lost tax revenue?

But perhaps I am being too cynical and too attached to my car (both of which I am) and the notion of being able to drive relative speed.  For sure, as someone who loves driving, I resent any incursion on my freedom of the road.  The latter has certainly suffered over the years as we have moved firmly into the digital age.

A good example is speed cameras, which I loath, along with many mandatory speed limits – which impose speed utterly irrespective of the conditions and time of day.  40 kms an hour in some areas is ridiculously fast in poor conditions as children leave school, whilst early on a perfect summer’s morning it can be absurdly slow.  And yet the speed linit remains the same and the sanctions unaltered.

Meanwhile, the average motorist is, all too often, left to feel like little more than the butt of easy state fund raising – with astronomical state taxes on fuel and non-negotiable driving fines imposed even upon drivers even when they are being far from reckless.

Of course, the conundrum of public transport continues in Spain just as it does everywhere else.  Invariably, it is cheaper to travel by train when you are alone.  However, once you travel as a family the cheaper option is almost always by car when there are three or four of you.  Until that is resolved by a ‘non-abc’ thinker about public transport – then people (particularly families) will still find it more practical and cost effective to go by car.

Maybe I am being too crusty over all of this?

The trouble is that I have a feeling that Fernando Alonso (Spain’s Formula 1 championship driver) is not too far off the mark with regard to the new speed limit in Spain.  He disagrees with it and says that at 110 kms an hour it will be difficult to stay awake as a driver!

Of course, Fernando Alonso must mean on the motorways and main roads of Spain – which are normally superb and often disappear in almost straight lines into the far distance. Indeed, one of the joys of Spain is the ability to drive with almost no meaningful traffic for kms on end, at a relatively decent speed.  To have to do so more slowly from now on, will, I fear, be a monumental test of one’s ability to remain alert…