Motoring in Spain Book Update

Local road annual road tax due again. As at this time every year the Spanish equivalent of the Road Fund Tax in the UK is due. it is called here the Impuesto Municipal Sobre Vehiculos de Traccion Mecanica or IVTM in short, and is payable in the period from February to May for the current year with penalties applying if paid after this date with no good reasons, e.g. bought a new/used car etc. As explained in the book, the actual amount varies from town to town as are the actual start and finish dates of the payment periods and they are each set by the local ayuntamiento (council), but for Malaga Province all the amounts can be seen in the web-site at click - http://www.prpmalaga.es/web/. I do not have any addresses for other Provinces but your local ayuntamiento will have the details including how to pay the amount which in many cases can be done by your bank or at selected banks as noted in the above web-site. For our Ford Focus in Marbella, this year's amount is €116, 25. Please do not put it off as it is checked in road blocks here and the fine is around €100.

Your vehicle's Fiscal CV details are on the Tarjeta de InspeccionTecnica de Vehiculos supplied with the vehicle, second column at the bottom.

The table here is for Marbella as an example (each town has its own amounts charged as in the web-site for those towns in Malaga or please check locally elsewhere) is below.

Go to the ayuntamiento that covers the address on the front of the Permiso de Circulacion or P. of C.. If you have recently bought the car and have not yet re-registered it in your name, either get it done as soon as possible, OR pay the annual tax to the ayuntamiento where the vehicle was last registered as on the P. of C. You will not be permitted to pay it to any other ayuntamiento Note that the ayuntamientos have access to all your details on their computer system which is networked with the main Trafico one.

Take you vehicle documents along to the ayuntamiento building and ask for a "Carta de Pago" para el impuesto municipal sobre vehiculos de traccion mecanica. You will receive an invoice which is also the receipt the bank or the ayuntamiento cash desk uses as the receipt after payment with your vehicle details including your name on it as on the permiso de circulacion. If you are paying on someone else's behalf, no problem, but know the owner's N.I.E. number to make sure that the correct owner is identified so you do not pay for someone else's.

Take the Carta de Pago to the named bank (note that some only allow certain service hours when the queues are smaller, e.g. 8H30 to 10H30, or you may have to have an account at that bank, or take it to the ayuntamiento cash-counter depending on how the system works in your area (ask someone if you do not know), pay the amount and the Carta will be stamped as a receipt, and that is that for another calendar year. As the various policing authorities have personal digital assistants at the road side now so they can access the PC systems for Trafico and hence the ayuntamientos for vehicles, there should be no need to carry the receipt, but this is Spain and I carry copies just in case. Keep the original in a safe place at home along with your other docs, but we (my wife and I) carry copies of all the vehicles docs. with us still.

Our 2008 Ford Focus, 1753 cc/115 bhp diesel vehicle (turismos tipo A) costs €116, 25 this year. That is €2, 24 a week, or 31 cents a day so that is not so bad.

The USA has a major problem with illegal immigration from such countries as Mexico and South America just as Britain does (usually from from failing countries by people looking for a better life) where the Mexican government is fighting a big battle to stop the very wealthy drug-dealers, now more like war-lords, from taking over Mexico (they are even murdering policemen and other officials who are not in the drug dealer's pay and sending their heads to relatives and govt. officials as warnings. What nice people!). Many Mexicans in the USA have to improvise their documents as they are not supposed to be there.

This is one from an illegal immigrant in Mississipi who was stopped for going through a red traffic light and was subsequently found to be drunk as well as not having a legal driving licence, USA or Mexican. A common problem apparently. But after all, such illegal immigrants are already criminals so what can we expect?

This is an actual citation report from the police traffic stop....

Running a red stop light: Fine - $100.00

Driving Under the Influence: Fine - $5.000.00

Not wearing a seat belt: Fine $50.00

Putting you & your girlfriend's photo on your fake driver's license: = $.PRICELESS.

REMEMBER,

When making any fake ID or driving licence, attach a picture of only yourself

- no matter how much you love your girl.

Counterfeit driving licences and I.D. cards (yes, Britain is one of the few countries where you do not have a legal identity card or document that must be carried at all times in public) are common in many US STATES, especially when used by illegal immigrants. Another reason is by teenagers who want to buy alcohol and in many States you are not allowed to drink, even at home until you are 21 years of age. Shops selling alcohol to under-age drinkers are penalised severely as many kill themselves in road accidents. Remember that in many States, a full driving licence can be earned at age 16. I lived and worked there for two years in the 1960s. e.____________________________________________________

Discounts for fines paid within 15 days increased to 50%.

With immediate effect, the discount for paying a fine within 15 days has been increased dramatically to 50%. Before you would receive a 10% discount but please do not get too excited because I have noticed that the fine amounts have increased in recent months so all it really means to me, being a cynic, is that the amounts paid will, be the same as tbefore but te discount will encourage early payment which means two things:

1. The government is, and will be increasingly, desperately short of income from taxes due toe not only the credit crisis but with the millions out of work now not paying taxes and this is expected to get worse, so expect that many ways of extracting extra cash will be used to ensure that public services (and especially M.P.'s pay) can be maintained. So be very careful and make sure you do not get into a position where you are fined, and this applies throughout the EU and the USA etc.

2. As I write in my book, if you pay the fine you are admitting guilt. You also have 14 work-days to advise the issuing authority that you intend to defend the charge/s, and even if you do not, they assume that you intend to dispute them and they can then wait for your lawyer's letter. If this is not received, other penalties await if you do not pay the fine as in the book. But payment of at least the 50% will quickly swell the emptying coffers of our government departments and advise them that they do not have to worry about taking you to Court and you can bet that the policing authorities are being urged to get tough, and one big current campaign is the failure of drivers and passengers to wear seat -belts and use child-seats but I know that anyone reading thsi would not be so stupid to ride in a vehicle after all the years of warnings with clunking-and-clicking. Would you now?

Semana Santa week is next and last year 48% of people killed in road accidents in Spain were not wearing seat belts. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Be safe out there and criticise the very bad drivers who drive too close to your vehicle?s rear end.

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Young Spanish drivers' misconceptions about the legal drink & drive limits in Spain.

A survey carried out in Catalunya (Valencia area) recently proved that many drivers between the ages of 18 to 34 did not know how much beer they could drink and still pass a breathalyser test. Many said that as much as four glasses (pint equivalent) would be OK whereas in fact for the average male, 1-1/2 glasses would be a marginal amount to produce a reading of 0,5 grammes of alcohol per litre of air and for the average female, only one glass. For vocationla drivers, the limits are less, 0,3 grammes.

It leads one to think that the driving lessons and tests are lacking when this important fact is not stressed.

From experience when I was young and single in the Royal Air Force, many young people saw it as a badge of honour to be able to drink anyone under the table as the saying went. Being a keen motorcyclist who then had friends crippled for life, two on motorcycles and one in his car (and their chosen careers ruined) by drunken car drivers who were later convicted in Court of the offences, I used to openly criticise the fools who boasted that they could not remember driving back to camp the previous night.

I am referring here to people who drink so they re incapable. I have seen them battling to get a key in their car door to unlock it and have even on some occasions taken the ignition key away and given it to the bar or restaurant owner for collection the next day, a taxi was then called.. On one occasion I threw the key into some bushes when the idiot objected strongly.

But on some occasions the drivers later thanked me.

My response when they boasted about being able to ·"drink me under the table" was " I can knock you under the table so what does it all prove?". That took the wind out of their sails very quickly and gave them something to think about and hopefully to stop their silly ways before they killed someone including themselves. Because I witnessed RAF friends when I was young, crippled for life by these very selfish drivers, I have always been against those who drink excessively and drive having also, as a volunteer policeman a few years ago in South Africa had to tell relatives on 8 separate occasions (at 3 a.m.) that their loved one/s were killed the previous evening in a road accident. In all cases, the smell of alcohol on the bodies was very evident. It leaves a deep impression when strangers are crying on your shoulder at the shock of such a pointless loss.

In my opinion anyone who goes out in or on a motor vehicle knowing that they are going to drink over the limit and then drive is committing a premeditated crime and deserves to lose their driving licence for life.

That is what I think anyway and I make no apologies for this point of view.

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