The idea to cut the legal blood alcohol limit in Spain from 0.5 grammes per litre to 0.2 grammes is stuck in Congress, even though many people support it. The lower house started working on the bill in March, with only Vox voting against it and the PP abstaining. The legislation is still in the Congressional Road Safety Committee, where the parties are working out a deal.
Several sources in parliament say that the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) is holding things up because they want to move the power to run driving tests to Catalonia. Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the Minister of the Interior, publicly asked for its approval “as soon as possible” just a month ago. He said, “There is no reason to wait even one more day to make this change. It can’t be put off.”
The PSOE’s plan would set the same rates for all drivers, getting rid of the variations between new and experienced drivers. It would also stop the sharing of information concerning police alcohol and drug checks and any other inspections that are already in place for road safety.
The Ministry of the Interior went to Sweden and Norway, which are known for having good road safety policies, to help them put this measure into place. These nations have a blood alcohol limit of 0.2 grammes per litre, which is also the case in Poland and Estonia. The limit for all drivers in Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia is 0.0. The European Transport Safety Council (an independent, non-profit group that wants to cut down on deaths and injuries in the transport sector in Europe) says that the limit should be 0.1 milligrammes per litre of exhaled air or 0.2 grammes per litre of blood. They know that this limit means zero tolerance.
In April, Pere Navarro, the Director General of Traffic, said, “Lowering the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers is a moral commitment to those who have died on the road.” He was presenting a research from the University of Valencia that backed up the move with scientific proof. The report looked at data from a number of official Spanish sources, such as the DGT (Spanish Directorate General of Traffic), the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences, and the Road Safety Prosecutor’s Office. It found that alcohol is still one of the most serious and long-lasting threats to road safety. From 2018 to 2022, the number of accidents in Spain that involved alcohol consumption and victims rose by 20%. Also, drinking not only makes the number of casualties go up by 16% and the number of deaths go up by five percentage points, but it also makes the accidents worse.
In 2024, 48% of drivers who died in an accident tested positive for alcohol, drugs, or narcotics.
In many circumstances, one drink would put you over the legal limit for driving if the amendment passes. The Royal Automobile Club of Spain (RACE) says that both men and women who weigh between 70 and 90 kilos can reach the limit of 0.2 grammes of alcohol per litre of blood (or 0.1 milligrammes of alcohol per litre of exhaled air) with a third of a litre of beer (5%), 100 ml of wine or cava (12%), or a 70 ml glass of vermouth (17%).
Tests for driving
The Socialists are continuing talking to groupings in the lower house of parliament. Parliamentary insiders admit, “The issue is at a standstill.” One of the problems they mention is “the transfer of authority over driving examiners,” which the pro-independence parties have asked for.
ERC is using its resources, in this case its important votes in Congress, to stop the lowering of the legal blood alcohol level until negotiations are back on track about who will be in charge of driving licence tests, at least. They say that the Madrid branch of the PSOE is to blame for the delay in getting driving examiners since they think that the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), the Ministry of the Interior, and even the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalan police) would be eager to help solve the problem. Sources who know about these talks say that the difficulty is that the PSOE doesn’t want to fix “the huge problem of the backlog in driving licence exams” and isn’t offering anything in return.
Esquerra wants to take full control of driving tests because they think this would help with the long wait times that are plaguing these tests all around Spain. In the meantime, though, they have asked for at least the power to do this function, saying that the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalan police) could help with the tests. Some party members said they are still waiting for “an effective solution to reduce the waiting lists for driving tests.”
Even though the DGT (Spanish Directorate General of Traffic) is practically at full capacity, Navarro has said in the past few months that it doesn’t have enough examiners to assess all of the applications. When Spain had 40 million people, the limit of 900 professionals was granted. Now, the population is close to 50 million. The head of the DGT has said that talks are going on with the Ministry of Public Administration to change the number of staff to better match current needs.
In Catalonia, the lack of examiners is causing driving licences to take months to be issued. More than 70,000 people are on the waiting list, which means that a lot of young people have to go to other areas to get their licences. In 2019, 2023, and 2025, the Catalan Parliament voted to give the Directorate General of Traffic more power. The Catalan government has agreed to hire 25 more examiners for now and is looking at prospective management contracts to help with the problem.
Author: Derek Appleton
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