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After new 30km/h limit on urban roads, Spain plans speed drop on secondary roads

The Local Spain
The Local Spain - [email protected]
After new 30km/h limit on urban roads, Spain plans speed drop on secondary roads
Photo: Juanecd/Flickr

Spain’s traffic authority has suggested it will drop the speed to 70km/h on secondary roads (carreteras convencionales) just as the country’s new speed laws for urban roads have come into force.

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Driving in Spain is undergoing some big changes currently. 

The speed limit was dropped from 50km/h to 30km/h on Tuesday May 11th and it was recently announced that the country’s entire motorway network will have tolls in the coming years.

There are also a number of stiffer penalties and stricter rules that are being introduced throughout 2021 which you can read about here.

READ MORE: Penalties, speed limits and prohibitions: Spain’s tougher driving laws for 2021

But Spain’s transport authority the DGT (Directorate General of Traffic) has more in store.

DGT head Pere Navarro has suggested that there will also be a speed limit drop on carreteras convencionales, the country’s secondary roads, where the current speed is 90km/h in most cases.

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“It should be 70km/h on these roads, that would be the ideal speed,” Navarro said on Tuesday.

Carreteras convencionales, high-capacity single-carriageway roads which are a step down from motorways (with lanes in both directions, with or without separating barriers) are where 77 percent of fatal road accidents take place in Spain, according to DGT data. They often run parallel to the motorways and connect different urban areas.

Cars and motorbikes on Spain’s carreteras convencionales already had to drop their speed from 100km/h to 90km/h in most cases in 2019.

Navarro’s words come in light of the fact that introducing tolls on motorways will likely mean that more drivers will use secondary roads as a way of getting around paying peajes (tolls) on highways.

One of the new road rules introduced this year also states that vehicles can no longer surpass the speed limit at all when overtaking on secondary roads, whereas before it was allowed by up to 20km/h when overtaking.

The DGT also announced that 550 speed cameras are being placed on urban roads in towns, cities and villages across Spain to make sure drivers stick to the new 30km/h limit, and that more speed cameras will be introduced on the points on secondary roads where most accidents happen.

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