Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Follow the new rules for driving in Tenerife
Starting from tomorrow, May 1st, new rules come into force in Spain that make it a proper offence (punishable by 3-6 months in prison, or a 12-24 month ban and 31 to 90 days community service), to drive without a driving licence, with one that has run out of points, been suspended, etc.
Until today, believe it or not, this was a relatively minor "administrative infraction", which probably explains why so many people just don't bother with the inconvenience of licence getting here.
In 2007, 25,000 were caught driving without ever having obtained a licence.
Whilst I'm sure things have changed a bit in the interim, a decade and a half ago, you could be almost certain that if a man on this island had a driving licence at all, then he probably paid a cousin in Santa Cruz to take the test for him.
Meanwhile, even when you drive perfectly legally in Spain, do be careful how you park, because as Colin in Galicia says, "I learned yesterday it's the law in Spain that you must leave 30cm [1 foot] between you and the next car when you park. I had thought the rule was 2cm in town and at least 2 metres where it's slightly less difficult to park. In what might be a typical Spanish approach to the application of a law, the police in Pontevedra say they're now going to fine anyone who leaves less than 20cm. So I guess both men and women will now be asking what 8 inches looks like." (It's probably an inch less in the Canaries! :)
But, if you just want guidance for where to drive to on this island, I highly recommend Real Tenerife Island Drives. Get the real printed book to keep, or you can buy single routes that you can download, print off and off you go ...
Add our updates to My Yahoo!, Bloglines, Feedster, Google Reader or More options ...
There's a bunch of good [cultural & bureacratic] reasons why a lot of local people don't/didn't bother to get their driving licenses here; for those who'd like to be overloaded with info about what the pedantic procedure is like (from scratch!) have a look here, here, here, here, here and here!
My official spanish license arrived in the post a few weeks ago... . :-)