MORE than one in ten drivers on Spanish roads are intoxicated, according to official data.

A Department of Transport (DGT) survey, involving 3,000 drivers across the country, found that 8.8% of drivers had been taking drugs, particularly cannabis, while 4.1% were over the alcohol limit.

Toxicology reports show 43% of those killed on Spanish roads this year had taken drugs or been drinking alcohol.

The DGT also insists that traffic fatalities – which numbered nearly 2,000 in 2012 – could be halved if people drove only when sober.

Boss Maria Segui explained that while Spain has accepted the ‘don’t drink and drive’ concept, the country has failed to realise it also applies to drugs.

She also blames the state and age of cars for an alarming rise in road deaths this year.

She said that many of the 396 fatalities this year – four times more than last year – were due to the average Spanish car being 12-years old.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Doubt if the average Spanish driver is any more smashed than he/she used to be. The last point about old, knackered cars is probably more pertinent.
    The problem with cannabis, noted here, is, this substance hangs around for weeks in the system, in effect giving a false reading. There is currently no reliable test indicating a level of intoxication, rendering one unfit to drive.
    It is only possible to say one has inhaled or eaten the substance at some time in the past weeks.
    We should be just as concerned with prescription drugs and driving.
    Roll on the Google driver-less car !

  2. Here in Denmark, the government has started a campaign against Cannabis – medical as well as recreational. Your drivers license is confiscated for THREE YEARS, if you have the slightest trace of THC in your system and get caught in one of the traffic Police-controls, where they have started to use expensive electronic testing equipment in order to ensure convictions. This means that if you went to a party three weeks ago, where someone blew a puff of smoke from a joint in your face, you lose your job – cause you can’t drive! Many young people have their future employment destroyed because of this new, unjust law. Hardly a constructive approach to the growing unemployment of our youth! At the same time a recent survey showed, that about 80 pct. of the danish people want Cannabis decriminalized! A change in the mad ban against the active medicine THC and CBD in Cannabis, which gives cancer patients and other seriously and chronically ill citizens a bearable quality of life back, will obviously not come from the political class or from civil servants or doctors… (even though Germany now has medical Cannabis available for chronically ill). The change must come from grassroots level in society, through protests, public defiance of the law and of course through good examples. No accidents caused by high drivers must oocur. No Cannabis given or sold to youths under 18 and so forth. People MUST demand an EU referendum on legalization of Cannabis like in Uruguay and Colorado and several other American states. Until then, it is wise not to drive under the influence of Cannabis here, active or passive, because the punishment in Denmark is ten times higher (!) than if you get caught DRUNK behind the wheel (thousands get killed in traffic every month from alcohol intoxication throughout Europe).
    Grow Cannabis – everywhere: Let’s spread seeds all over Europe in public areas like some activists have been doing in German cities!

  3. Nothing new here, I only commented on the drunks coming out of the local village bars a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think the police can be too bothered and the the local police really do live local so they are too friendly with the villagers. It all seems OK until they start killing your relatives or putting you in a wheel chair for life. More deaths than the UK with probably half the cars. Some can’t even see further than their hand when driving around these roads in the dark and that is before they have had a drink.

  4. According to an article Olive posted in January,road deaths in Spain last year were 1128 and 1300 in 2012. These figures were from DGT and are positive as Australia has very similar numbers but has only half Spain’s population.

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