Drinking and driving – The law

Here at AutosDirect we always recommend a taxi home form a good night out! Drinking and driving cannot be supported in this day and age. Also, Spain has extremely strict drink driving laws! – Far more strict than many other countries so please watch out! The legal limit here in Spain is just 0.05% (0.01% for new drivers). They are serious about drunk driving and have strict penalties, such as heavy fines, license suspension and imprisonment.

Drink driving limits in Europe

These are the limits for blood alcohol around Europe expressed as milligrams per millilitre

• 0.0 – Estonia, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary
• 0.2 – Norway, Poland, Sweden
• 0.4 – Lithuania
• 0.5 – Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany (Germany is 0.3 if you’re in an accident), Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Serbia/Montenegro, Croatia, Latvia, Macedonia, Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Cyprus (North)
• 0.8 – UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Switzerland
• 0.9 – Cyprus (South)

So how many drinks is that!?

Spain’s 0.5mg limit is the equivalent of just one small beer (caña), and of course, if you are a new driver, then Spain’s 0.1 tolerance effectively means you can’t come within a sniff of a small beer!

The consequences

Don’t expect any leniency if convicted of drink-driving here in Spain. At the very least you’re going to get a large fine. Your licence will be suspended or you’ll be banned from driving. The last client we had here at AutosDirect who fell foul of the law not only received an extremely heavy fine, but also community service, and a ban. If caught driving again, he will go directly to prison! Serious stuff indeed. “Luckily” his license to drive in the UK is not affected, but of course he lives here full time!

The future

There is every indication that the law across Europe will be unified into a uniform 0.2mg limit. Again, that’s effectively “zero tolerance”.

Be safe!

This article was written on Monday, June 7th, 2010
It's filed under: "Motoring in Spain"

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