“In Spain, driving is terrible”, this study contradicts what you have been saying all your life
How many times have we heard or have you said that in Spain we drive terribly, that we have bad roads, etc.? Well, a study has created a ranking of the easiest European countries to drive in, and can you guess what position we ended up in?
In Spain we are very critical of our own for the sake of criticism. We are not a perfect country, far from it, but in terms of road safety and infrastructure, we cannot complain. Especially when we look at other countries, even other Western countries, or if we have had the opportunity to drive in other countries.
Yes, it is true, many stretches of our roads are in a terrible state, to the point that the head of the DGT, Pere Navarro, said not long ago that “the infrastructure is what it is” during the summer operation exit. And our vehicle fleet is too old.
Are you one of those who have ever said that driving in Spain is bad or that we have bad roads? This study conducted by DiscoverCars.com contradicts many of these claims and supports the results of previous studies, confirming that Spain is the “easiest” country to drive in Europe.
The best and worst of Spanish roads
To understand these results, we need to analyze what factors have been taken into account to establish the positions in this ranking. Up to five different elements have been considered: the per capita investment made to improve the state of the road, the different types of road signage to “facilitate navigation”, the number of cars in circulation, gas stations, and public parking spaces.
Each of these sections was assigned a maximum score of 26, so in the best case, a total of 130 points could be obtained. As we said, Spain has come out the best in the ranking, occupying the first position with 95 points. France was second, with 86, and Norway third with 82 points. The United Kingdom, Netherlands, Finland, and Austria complete the Top 5, with a three-way tie for fourth place.
But let’s analyze what we have here in Spain compared to other countries, to draw the positive and negative points of our road infrastructure. In DiscoverCars rankings, by the way, Spain already ranked fourth in the survey of its customers about the “easiest countries to drive through”, only behind New Zealand, Cyprus, and Australia. It also holds privileged positions among countries with the most affordable cross-border travel routes.
If we look at the first factor analyzed, regarding investment, Spain reaches 230 euros per capita (per person per year), being one of the countries with the lowest figure. This contrasts with 345 euros in France, 540 euros in Switzerland, or 928 euros in Norway. Regarding the variety of traffic signs, with 120, only Croatia and Serbia surpass us (132 and 131, respectively).
Spain clearly penalizes in the third section, which is the number of cars in circulation, like our neighbors France, Italy, as well as the United Kingdom or Germany. In our country, there are 34 million cars, many fewer than the Norwegians in third place, with 2.8 million; Germany leads here with 49 million vehicles.
To achieve the good score, Spain can boast of providing a large number of gas stations and public parking spaces: 16,431 service stations, only surpassed by Italy and even ahead of Germany, and 9,080 public parking spaces, only surpassed here by the astronomical 36,950 in the United Kingdom.
“While some areas of Spain are very populated, like the capital, Madrid, rural areas have a much lower population. Your driving experience in Spain can depend greatly on your location. Some Spanish destinations are also affected by excessive tourism,” says DiscoverCars about our country, highlighting the “Grand Tour” route in Catalonia above all.
Fuente: Discover Cars
