Spain’s big summer getaway kicks off today and will cause higher volumes of traffic than usual, authorities have warned.
The General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) predicts there will be 6,880,000 trips made between Thursday and Sunday night.
It is therefore launching a ‘Special Operation’ for August today at 3pm. The DGT said in a statement that August is the busiest month for Spanish roads, with 52,871,000 trips expected this year.
This weekend will be one of the busiest as it is the start of the summer holidays from most Spanish families, and is the peak arrival time of tourists from abroad.
The DGT has ramped up its resources to 100%, including road stops, helicopters, speed cameras, unmarked traffic cop cars and more.
The traffic authority predicts that starting early Thursday afternoon, mainly between 4pm and 11pm, there will be significant long-haul vehicle movements, causing high traffic volumes and traffic disruptions.
The most affected areas will be on roads leaving major urban centres and on the main access routes to coastal tourist and leisure areas – such as the Costa del Sol or Costa Blanca.
Meanwhile, from early afternoon on Friday, August 1, from 3pm to midnight, there will be significant vehicle movements, causing traffic problems and delays when leaving large urban centres and also on the main roads leading to coastal tourist destinations.
Increased traffic jams are also expected between 9am and 2pm on Saturday.
The DGT has asked drivers to ‘respect’ the rules and act with ‘caution’, noting that there has been 111 deaths on Spanish roads in July.
Some 36 of these were motorcyclists, a figure the DGT branded ‘worrying’.
