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news
Mallorca cyclingNew Spanish law to "protect" cyclists proposes drivers must slow 20km/h below speed limit before overtaking bike riders
Drivers in Spain will be required to adhere to new rules around cyclists, the roads authorities introducing several laws to better protect bike riders on Spanish roads.
The changes for 2025, proposed by the Directorate General of Traffic (DGT), were reported by Majorca Daily Bulletin and will no doubt be of interest to British riders heading for future winter training on the island or Spain's mainland.
Perhaps the most striking addition is that motorists will be required to reduce their speed to 20km/h (12mph) below the speed limit when overtaking a cyclist. For example, on a 90km/h road a driver would need to slow to 70km/h to overtake.
The DGT had stated that this is because "the speed difference between the two is already large, so the protection of the weaker forces the speed to be reduced and not increased".
There will be no change to the existing requirement for drivers give cyclists at least 1.5m of space when overtaking. The changes follow on from a 2022 update to the Traffic and Road Safety Law. Failing to give the 1.5m overtaking gap is punishable with a 200-euro fine and up to six penalty points, although the DGT has not said it it is considering increasing the penalties. In urban areas, drivers will be required to keep at least five metres behind cyclists.
The other changes apply to cyclists who will be required to wear reflective or luminous accessories in low-visibility conditions to enable them to be seen from at least 150 metres away. Helmet-wearing is also to be made mandatory for all cyclists in all situations, although this is only a slight tightening from the previous law and removes certain exceptions that previously stood.
In urban areas, cyclists will now be allowed to filter and overtake on either side of vehicles and can ride against the direction of traffic on single-lane one-way streets if the speed limit is 30km/h or less.
The changes to the law come to the context of there having been 90 cyclist deaths in Spain in 2023, a figure that had increased on 2022's number. The DGT hopes the new measures will improve road safety and better protect cyclists, the authority urging coexistance and mutual respect.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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9 comments
I love the 20km/h below the limit rule - in particular in towns and cities, where this will often mean that overtaking a cyclist (riding at 30km/h or more) is forbideen: With the large number of traffic lights, stop signs and turns in such places, there is no point in overtaking such a cyclist.
(However, the behaviour towards cyclists is usually fine on the continent in any case - a rider wearing lycra on a roadbike is seen as "keen" and "fast enough" to be worth a little wait before a safe pass is possible.)
I've done a lot of touring in Spain, and the motorists are very careful when they overtake me, sometimes it's embarrassing, there is plenty of room for them to get by but they trundle behind me at about 15mph.
My expectation, admittedly based only on experience of UK police, is that the laws affecting drivers won't be enforced, and that the function of the helmet and HiViz laws is simply to blame cyclist victims who weren't wearing them. In practice, we already have all of that here without any 'laws'
A cyclist going at 30kph, which is not uncommon, will now never be overtaken on a 50kph road. Nice traffic jam🤣
If/when there's a queue of traffic behind, they'll pull over (coexistance and mutual respect).
But they still have the wanky helmet laws, no one is perfect.
Wanky helmet laws?
Yes, wanky helmet laws.
Mix of good and not so there. Overtaking stuff all sounds sensible (if people remember...), not sure on the compulsory PPE.
Have they done an analysis at population level to gauge whether this won't result in lower population health overall (e.g. by dissuading cycling)? Is cycling so safe there that they will be able to tell that it makes a difference? (In the UK this would probably be lost in a haystack of severe injuries and deaths due to driver-cyclist crashes, where it is less likely and harder to tell what if any benefit a helmet might have had). Do they in fact have the data collection processes in place to tell if this is helping, or is it just "stands to reason" or "we've done something"?
And the "enhancing visibility" thing? I use and strongly recommend reflectives at night but I doubt mandating these helps. It's another "barrier to cycling" (see helmet) - having to dress for the journey not destination. And more visual noise to filter. Plus if their problem is drivers saying they didn't see a cyclist they've got other issues. (e.g. poor infra which is unclear, or insufficiently protective. Perhaps driver training issues also. Combining that with probably few cyclists and drivers are not looking for cyclists or perhaps plain not looking).