Interesting thread. I've noticed quite a difference in the way traffic laws are enforced here by police at all levels (compared to back home in Canada). For instance the number of cars passing me on the highway going 40 to 50 Kms over the speed-limit is simply staggering. The limit on the 4 lane highways here is 120. I average between 120-135 and hoards of cars fly by me like I'm standing still (usually BMW’s, & Audis). There's one simple reason for this: Lack of serious highway enforcement. There doesn’t seem to be any serious effort to stop or control speeding here in Spain or to enforce other traffic laws. I do a lot of driving here so I’m speaking from experience.
There also doesn’t seem to be a serious effort (compared to back home in Canada) to enforce motorcycle helmet laws, dangerous driving of motorcycles and scooters, (speeding, dangerously weaving in and out of traffic), child car seat usage (something police back home seem to take very seriously), seat belts, or dangerous driving (passing on two lane highways into oncoming traffic). I can’t begin to tell you how many people I see NOT wearing their seatbelts, speeding inside small towns & on highways, driving with small children unrestrained in the vehicle, passing other vehicles on curves and forcing other cars off the road in order to avoid collisions, driving motorbikes with the muffler off while speeding & weaving through traffic without a helmet (while the helmet-less girlfriend desperately tries to hang on the back), going through red lights, and last but not least dinking & driving (there's lots of that here especially in the smaller communities and especially by young people). I have a driving school next door to me and I laugh every time I see it.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Canadians are any better or more sensible or better drivers than the Spanish (technically people here are very good drivers) it’s just that we can’t get away with these things back home on the same level they do here (and if we could we probably would). Try doing those things back home on the level they do here and law enforcement is all over you, and rightly so.
It’s not funny really. The yearly price in blood and death for this lack of enforcement is also staggering. I can only imagine the number of lives wiped-out and families devastated because these laws are not enforced at the level they should be here. Over 5,000 people in motor vehicle deaths last year alone. That’s a whole "pueblo" every year. Insane.
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