Reduction of speed limit for passenger and freight transport vehicles

The Spanish Official Gazette (“Boletín Oficial del Estado-BOE”) dated December 29th 2018 published the Royal Decree 1514/2018 of December 28th 2018, which amends the General Traffic Regulation (Royal Decree 1428/2003 of November 21st) and whose objective is to establish a reduction of speed limit of certain vehicles in traffic on public conventional roads.

This amendment is part of the strategy pursued by the administration which aims at minimizing the number of road accidents since, as underscored by the R.D. 1514/2018, two particularly important facts must be considered in addressing this issue: on the one hand, 75 % of accidents involving fatalities occur on these conventional roads, and, on the other hand, the inadequate speed is the concurrent cause of 20 % of the accidents.

One of the objectives of this amendment is, among others, to establish new speed limits for passenger and freight transport vehicles. More specifically, in the case of trucks, it standardizes the speed limit in 80 km/h on conventional roads, a limit common in most of the EU countries. The general limitation of 90 km/h for buses is due to the ongoing law accident rate of these vehicles, however, those that are not equipped with seat belts will not be allowed to excess 80 km/h.

The Royal Decree will come into force one month after its publication.