Driving is for many, including myself, one more pleasure when traveling. Whether by car, motorbike or van , Europe is a great setting for great road trips, but there are several things to keep in mind.
Do the fines apply if I travel outside of Spain?
The best thing is not to have them and thus avoid any type of problem. The most common reason for which you are usually fined when traveling abroad, apart from speed cameras, is for tolls . Sometimes you can get on a highway without realizing it, since the indications are not understandable or simply because you do not know where you have to pay. In some countries you pay at gas stations where you have to buy a ticket (vignette) or you have to do the process online before leaving, like in Portugal, having to struggle to understand the indications in another language and not being able to fill in contact details that you don’t have because you don’t live there.
There is a solution to all this trouble if you travel through Portugal, France and Spain and it is simply to contract the Via T Telepeaje , with which your car automatically goes through the tolls without having to stop and with a device such as Bip&Drive you can control each payment from an app on your phone.
Answering the question of whether the fines arrive outside of Spain, it is yes . Within the European Union, any offense committed will reach your mailbox at home.
Road or highway?
By road you usually have better landscapes and you don’t have to pay, although this fact that it is cheaper by road than by highway is often not true. The fuel and time you save when you take a motorway usually more than make up for the price of a toll, and more if several people are traveling in the vehicle. To this we must add that a motorway is much safer than a conventional road.
What about my insurance, would it cover me in an accident abroad?
If you are in a country within the European Union, the law in that country applies, but your insurance will always cover damage to third parties , that is, to another vehicle and to your own companions, even if it was your fault. For the rest of coverage you have to check with your insurance company.
international card
If you travel within Europe you will not need to obtain the international permit . Any permit issued within the European Union will be valid for driving in any member country. If you are going to drive outside the European Union temporarily, you will need to remove it.
To get the international permit you simply have to go to Traffic , request it and they give it to you the same day. Its price is usually about €10 approximately and it is valid for one year.
No matter what journey you take, always be careful behind the wheel and it’s better to be late than not at all!
