Spain's busiest weekend for holiday traffic

The second and third week of August is the period in which most Spanish take a holiday and therefore the busiest time for traffic on the roads. The Spanish Director of Traffic has mounted a national campaign to try and reduce accidents and deaths on Spanish roads over this period.

Last year during the same weekend there were 48 deaths on the road, 8 more than the previous year, and 21 people were seriously injured making this the worst weekend for accidents in the whole year. Spanish national bank hoidays are also notorious for the number of mortal road accidents that occur.

There have also been calls for people not to drink drive. This is important advice given that August is the time when most local fiestas take place and many people use their cars to travel to fiestas.

Yesterday, there were almost 46 kms of traffic jams on the roads leaving Madrid. The busiest roads were the A-6 (Madrid-A Coruña) and the A-3 (Madrid-Valencia).

It is hoped that the recently introduced system of driving licence points will help reduce dangeroius driving and therefore accidents. Evidence of this is that last month 279 people were killed on the roads, 63 less than the previous year.

Related:
Road travel in Spain
Road safety in Spain
Drink driving in Spain
Driving License penalty points system introduced in Spain