28 Jan, 2010 @ 12:15
1 min read
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Worst drivers in Spain

AFTER being stuck behind countless crawlers or overtaken by mad speed fiends, a report has now confirmed the suspicion: Andalucia has Spain’s worst drivers.

Drivers in southern Spain lost more points on their licenses than any other region.

The worst province was Sevilla where 68,000 drivers lost points last year, followed by Cordoba and Jaen.

Of the 200,000 points lost in total, some 7000 were pulled over for drink driving or speeding.

However, Malaga registered a 36 per cent drop in road deaths, while Sevilla emerged once again as the most dangerous province with 71 fatalities.

Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)

Jon Clarke is a Londoner who worked at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday as an investigative journalist before moving to Spain in 2003 where he helped set up the Olive Press.

After studying Geography at Manchester University he fell in love with Spain during a two-year stint teaching English in Madrid.

On returning to London, he studied journalism and landed his first job at the weekly Informer newspaper in Teddington, covering hundreds of stories in areas including Hounslow, Richmond and Harrow.

This led on to work at the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Mirror, Standard and even the Sun, before he landed his first full time job at the Daily Mail.

After a year on the Newsdesk he worked as a Showbiz correspondent covering mostly music, including the rise of the Spice Girls, the rivalry between Oasis and Blur and interviewed many famous musicians such as Joe Strummer and Ray Manzarak, as well as Peter Gabriel and Bjorn from Abba on his own private island.

After a year as the News Editor at the UK’s largest-selling magazine Now, he returned to work as an investigative journalist in Features at the Mail on Sunday.

As well as tracking down Jimi Hendrix’ sole living heir in Sweden, while there he also helped lead the initial investigation into Prince Andrew’s seedy links to Jeffrey Epstein during three trips to America.

He had dozens of exclusive stories, while his travel writing took him to Jamaica, Brazil and Belarus.

He is the author of three books; Costa Killer, Dining Secrets of Andalucia and My Search for Madeleine.

Contact jon@theolivepress.es

3 Comments

  1. This just doesn’t surprise me at all. I used to live in Malawi, a very poor country in central Africa, and the percentage of cars there with only one headlight working was far lower than here in Andalucia. I’ve even seen Guardia Civil vans with only one working headlight!

  2. In the former Yugoslavia it was said that you drove with one foot in the grave and the other in jail.
    I’ve read that in Rome on your driving test if you can drive round the block without killing anybody you pass.

  3. The trouble could well be in the way in which driving lessons are given here in Spain. The Spanish form of teaching is theory, theory and more theory with a tiny bit of practice thrown in. After learning stacks of the Highway Code and first aid (most of which will never be used in the average driver’s life) the new driver is then allowed out on the streets with very little practical experience. New drivers here are not taught to be alert to possible accidents or to be aware of their surroundings (one of the reasons why the average Spanish driver doesn’t even notice someone trying to pull out from a parking spot into a line of stationary traffic). The field of vision is just in front of the car’s bonnet! My wife has taken a break from learning to drive as some of the mock exam questions are ridiculous: correct pressures of a lorry’s tires, which bleeding arteries need to be stopped if you see someone in an accident etc etc.
    One thing to be grateful for though: at least we don’t have the same Road Rage as exists in the UK. A good thing really, as the use of the car horn is almost mandatory here!

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