SPAIN’S traffic police are ramping up speed checks this week in a crackdown running across the entire country — and beyond.
The DGT (Dirección General de Tráfico) launched the week-long campaign on Sunday April 13, with controls running until April 19 on both urban and intercity roads, with particular focus on high-risk stretches and known accident blackspots.
Agents of the Traffic Division of the Guardia Civil are being supported by local police forces from municipalities that have joined the initiative.
The campaign is not just a Spanish operation. It is being run simultaneously across Europe through RoadPol (European Roads Policing Network), meaning drivers in all member countries face intensified checks this week.
READ MORE: WATCH: Shocking moment TV cameras stationed above road in central Spain capture mass pile-up live
Spain’s road safety speaks for itself and record gives the authorities ample reason to act.
Inappropriate speed was a decisive factor in 307 fatal crashes in 2024 — a 5.5% rise on the 291 recorded the previous year.
It remains the third most common contributing factor in road accidents and is present in more than 20% of fatal crashes.
The scale of the problem is reflected in driver behaviour. Around 60% of motorists admit to exceeding speed limits on conventional roads, while nearly half do so in urban areas.
The consequences of speed are stark. Above 80kph, survival is practically impossible for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle. At 30kph, the risk of death falls to just 5%.
Results from the last equivalent campaign, held between August 4 and 10 last year, illustrated just how persistent the problem is.
The Guardia Civil checked more than one million vehicles and issued reports against 68,662 of them — a rate of 6.7%, the highest across the last seven campaigns.
Local police checked a further 312,000 vehicles and brought 14,336 reports, a rate of 4.5%.
Since the first fixed radar programme was introduced in Spain in 2005, speed cameras — alongside other measures — have helped cut road fatalities by 75%.
February also saw 33 new speed cameras activated across roads in 11 autonomous communities, comprising 20 fixed units and 13 average-speed cameras.
The campaign forms part of Spain’s Road Safety Strategy 2030 and the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, both of which aim to halve road deaths by the end of the decade.
Click here to read more Travel News from The Olive Press.
