Car owners in Spain are required to have the following four things in place before they can take their vehicle out on the road: paid-up car tax, valid insurance, the ITV vehicle inspection certificate and, last but not least, a complete disregard for their own personal safety.
This was proven again this weekend, at an official level, when we took our car to sort out item 3 on the list, the ITV.
The ITV, or Inspección Técnica de Vehículos, is the equivalent of the British MOT. A new car has to take this test after 4 years on the road, then every 2 years for a while, then finally every year.
The test is administered at huge warehouses on the dusty outskirts of cities all over Spain, and involves checking exhaust emissions, suspension, brakes, indicators, seatbelts, and other small items required for general road safety like whether or not your headlights work.
Ours didn’t. At the very second the guy told me to turn on my headlights for this seemingly important part of the test, a warning light popped up on my dashboard telling me that the front left headlamp had failed. Oh No!
This blatantly meant we were going to fail the ITV, would have to drive back to Madrid, get it fixed, and come all the way back out to kilometer 20.4 of the A6 motorway to take the test again several days later.
As we queued up to get out ‘Fail’ certificate the injustice of this terrible piece of bad timing weighed heavily: why couldn’t the damn light have blown just 2 minutes later? I approached the desk and was informed by a nice young lady, ‘Here we are, no problems, 2 more years.’ The car passed the test!
Marina and I scanned the piece of paper to see how on earth this was possible. At the bottom there were two colomuns: Infracciones Graves (Serious, Your-Car-Is-Off-The-Road Problems) and Infracciones Leves (Little Fluffy Don’t-Worry-About-It Problems). Under the Small Problems column, where things that are not important enough to fail you and keep your car off the road go, we read ‘broken headlamp bulb’.
So next time you drive along a narrow Spanish country lane in the dark, and a nearly-impossible-to-see car with only one functional headlamp comes tearing round a blind corner nearly forcing you off the road in shock, don’t worry! Relax! It’s just an Infracción Leve, not in any way to be confused with something that might actually make the already scary roads of Spain any less of a secure environment for you and your family!
Spanish car-madness stories/experiences welcome in the comments below.
luis
18 Aug 08 at 9:34 am
“Infracción leve” means that it can be solved easily when you go hom and you don’t need to waste more time passing your ITV test again. But if the “Guardia Civil” stop your car and they check that you haven’t solved this “infracción leve”, then, man, you have a problem.
My advice: change that bulb lamp, for your security and for your money’s security.
Tom
18 Aug 08 at 9:53 am
Well… that sounds pretty reasonable to me. I’m surprised by the modern approach to a problem which you could easily fix on your drive home, thus saving everyone time, money and emissions!
bill
18 Aug 08 at 10:10 am
I agree with Tom. It would have been petty of them to fail you for a blown light bulb. I also think the ITV in many ways is better than its UK equivalent, the MOT, in that the people carrying out the ITV are employed by the government and do not also carry out repairs on cars. Therefore it is not in their interest to lie to you and tell you that your car needs to have expensive work carried out on it in order to pass, with the hope that you’ll get them to do it. Something which is a common occurence in the UK.
Parubin
18 Aug 08 at 10:33 am
Ben,
I agree with the above comments. With an ‘Infracción Leve’ such a broken headlamp, obviously it doesn’t mean that your car is fit to be on the road. It just means that you must fix it yourself immediately but you won’t have to go again to the ITV warehouse just to get it checked, wasting everyone’s time.
As said before, if you are stopped by the “Guardia Civil” on the road and they ask for the ITV report and find that you haven’t repaired your headlights you will surely be fined for it.
I would have thought this ITV procedure is the same in Britain. Going back again to the km.20,4 of the A6 motorway only to have a bulb checked seems a bureaucratic nightmare to me.
Imagine having to go to the hospital for the doctor to check if you actually took the aspirins he precribed the day before!!
bill
18 Aug 08 at 11:52 am
@Parubin – re. the procedure in the UK.
In the UK the ITV (or MOT as it is known there) is carried out in garages/car repair shops. The car mechanic is privately employed and has to get a licence to perform MOTs. People take their car to the garage for the MOT and if there are any problems, the mechanic will usually fix them at the same time, and of course charge extra.
This leads to the conflict of interests that I was getting at in my previous post – there is nothing to stop the mechanic from inventing problems with the car, since the customer will probably get him to “fix” the problem rather than take the car somewhere else, get it repaired and then pay to have the MOT performed all over again.
ValenciaSon
18 Aug 08 at 12:05 pm
So if you have a an infraccion grave but the an infraccion leve is first discovered, is the test stopped at the discovery of the infraccion leve, leaving the grave undiscovered?
jose
18 Aug 08 at 12:26 pm
It is an “Infracción leve” because it’s supposed that you have a replacement bulb in your car (it’s mandatory) and you can solve the problem within minutes yourself. As previously said, if Guardia Civil stops you, you will be fined.
To the previous comment: you must make all tests of the ITV, when finish you can have zero or more infracción grave and zero or more infracción leve. One fault doesn’t means that the test stops there.
Marina
18 Aug 08 at 1:10 pm
The funniest thing of all is that the same bulb is now working;-)
I agree that it would have been too much waste of everybodys time to make us comeback just to check that we have change a bulb.
Al
18 Aug 08 at 1:18 pm
I think a lot of the drivers should have to pass a yearly ITV too as they’re often faulty as well !
Skip
18 Aug 08 at 1:53 pm
here in the US, The inspection process is a state by state affair and specific to each “county” as well…. Some states have very stringent emission requirements like California. Here in Austin TX, where I live, they have recently implemented more strict emission rules… and I had a similar experience with my vehicle… The morning I took it in, My oxygen sensor tripped, indicating an issue with the emissions – but when the licensed inspector checked it, the error had cleared… whew! Also we have to inspect it annually, unless you have a brand new car which is good for two years.
cheers,
-Skip
Ben
18 Aug 08 at 3:32 pm
Isn’t it a legal requirement to carry a set of spare bulbs in your car?
If so shouldn’t you have failed for not having these?
I would have thought this would be the perfect solution, then there would be no excuse for driving with a broken bulb.
Louise
18 Aug 08 at 3:54 pm
Yes it is a legal requirement to have spare bulbs in your car in Spain. I agree it is a small thing and it would have been petty of them to send you off, meaning you’d have to re visit at a later date.
But then again they could have asked you to replace the bulb there and then before re checking the car, rather than assuming it was a broken bulb when it could easily been something potentially more serious like faulty wiring.
Ben
18 Aug 08 at 3:57 pm
@Ben (other ben!), yes, you do have to carry spare bulbs. The thing with our car is that the bulb started working again as soon as we left the place!
And to reply to others above, yes, I see it makes sense not to waste everyone’s time coming back to the test center, but how do you guarantee that people will actually change that bulb?
BrianA
18 Aug 08 at 4:10 pm
And you can add to the list: fluorescent jackets, warning triangles and just about any document the Guardia feel like asking you for including but not only car technical document, empadriamento, passport/ID, receipt for car insurance (or it’s not valid)……
Worth having all your lights working so they don’t have a reason to stop you!
John Ross
18 Aug 08 at 7:28 pm
I’m not a driver, so feel free to ignore this. But I’d have thought that intermittent problems with lights of any kind were not usually due to bulbs which, like fuses, only blow once, but to wiring. I’d bet you have an electrical problem.
Dano
18 Aug 08 at 10:44 pm
As Forest Gump said, Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get….I think it is the same when you deal with any bureaucratic organization.
When I lived in Spain I couldn’t get out of the office without producing spare bulbs, 2 warning triangles, and an orange reflective vest. My friend saw a different clerk/inspector and was in and out in no time flat without the above mentioned items. You just never know…..
raytibbitts
19 Aug 08 at 4:14 am
I can’t believe how much I agree with so many of the commenters on this topic.
I too have experienced ‘Schrodinger’s Idiot-Light” The warning symbol on the dash board that only lights up when it’s being ‘observed’, but as soon as you go to get it worked on, it won’t come on. Black electrical tape seems to have solved the problem for me. At least that pesky light doesn’t bother me when I’m driving anymore. wink. wink.
I miss the days of living in a state that allowed me to get my yearly inspection-and-smog-check at the same time and place that I got an oil change, that only required paying taxes on my vehicle at the time of sale (not every year,) and that recognized my California Driver’s License, and DLs from pretty much anywhere, foreign or domestic. (There are fewer and fewer States that do any of this, I’m told.)
When I was in High School, Drivers Ed was part of the free, public school curriculum, and my shop teacher taught us how to drive in vehicles that the school district owned, with automatic transmissions. When I was 15 1/2 I started driving legally, and I got my DL after taking a written exam, and that same afternoon, taking the driving exam, on a closed course at the DMV. I got the lowest possible scores allowable, but I was legal. I blame the low score on the fact that my Dad made me take the exam in our VW Vanagon, that had a 3 foot long stick shift. The most I had to pay, when my card expired, to get a renewal card, was when I moved to Georgia, and I had to pay six bucks, but they automatically registerred me to vote, and they still send me ballots, for free, no matter where I live.
I can see the benefit of only allowing inspections at government run institutions, where no repairs can be performed. I can also possibly see why my Drivers License from the U.S. should be replaced by a Spanish one, even before it expires. But, I cannot believe that there is any statistical justification to explain why it was required of me to go back to Driver’s Ed. and retake both the written and driven exams, in Spanish, and to waste my hard-earned money, while foreigners in Spain from so many other countries can simply waltz in and out of the DGT office, in a single visit, and get their licenses so easily, no school, no exams, no Spanish required. And I’m not just talking about fellow EU members, but South American states, and other countries, as well.
Between this, and being told that I couldn’t take photos in a public place, because the cops were afraid that I was filming them, I don’t know which situation made the angriest, but I know which one made me the poorest.
If someone can show me the statistical data that would indicate that U.S. drivers cause more traffic problems (even per capita) in Spain than other countries’ drivers, I will eat my hat.
Thank you all for suffering my rant on motor vehicles… that went maybe too far off topic. Sorry.
Carl
19 Aug 08 at 4:18 pm
As a tourist you can drive immediately in Spain with a California driver’s license. They won’t let you do that as a more permanent resident?
bill
19 Aug 08 at 5:23 pm
@Carl – correct! If you are a resident in Spain then by law you have to get a Spanish driving licence. For UK citizens this is just a paperwork exercise, probably due to EU standardisation. However it seems from ray’s post that it’s not so straight forward with a Californian licence, and you have to take all the test(s).
I guess you can try pretending to be a tourist if you are resident in Spain, in which case you will get an on the spot fine for minor infringements instead of points. However you need to make sure that none of the other documentation such as the insurance is in your name.
Parubin
19 Aug 08 at 6:18 pm
@ Ray Carl & Bill :
The same happens the other way around. As a Spanish tourist in the US I’ve never had any problems renting cars and driving in the different US States that I have visited a number of occasions with my Spanish (= European) driving license.
However if I was to apply for a permanent US residency I would have to take the US driving test again and get an American license.
I know the latter because, I don’t know how, a while ago I found myself watching a TV reality show on the Beckams (David and Victoria) arrival in L.A. At some point, Victoria made a wrong turn while driving and she was stopped by a officer. She produced her Spanish driving license (the only one they had as they had been living in Madrid for the past four years) and the officer said that as a permanent resident in California that license was no longer valid. So they both had to go back to Drivers’ Ed and pass a test for a California Licence , even when they had the Spanish license.
However this was not the case a few years back. Back in 1991 I spent a highschool year in Minnesota where I took Driver’s Ed in highschool at the age of 15. I passed the test and I was given a Minnesota Driver Licence. When I came back to Spain I was not able to drive because I was 16 and the legal driving age here is 18, but as soon as I turned that age I only had to do some paper work to get a valid Spanish License, without going back to Driver’s Ed (which is not free in Spain) or taking any kind of test.
ania
19 Aug 08 at 8:38 pm
Surely this shouldnt be a dig at the Spanish “system”. Ive had similar experiences in Germany where the nice man from the TUV (German MOT) has let me off with a broken bulb. This post should be complimenting a very thoughtful and reasonable employee working for a sometimes very thoughtless institution.
Gdot
20 Aug 08 at 2:16 pm
I think your experience shows the good side of the system. Look at mine: last year “minor failure”, light from the intermitent bulbs too weak. They looked fine to me so I did not care to change them. This year, with the same bulbs no problem.
Anna
21 Aug 08 at 9:29 am
Can I disagree with point 4? I’m an Australian and I just spent 5 weeks touring Spain (and a little of Portugal) by motorbike, and we found Spanish drivers fantastic! They look out for motorbikes, they almost always drive on the correct side of the road and they don’t honk their horns just for the fun of it! We had been told all sorts of horror stories and were preparaed for the worst, but we didn’t have a single problem.
But Italy, that’s another story …
If you’re a statistics nerd like me you can check out the EU annual report on road safety. http://ec.europa.eu/transport/roadsafety_library/care/doc/safetynet/2007/sn-1-3-asr-2007_final.pdf which shows that, basically, that Malta’s the place to be if you want to avoid dying in a car accident
Anna
26 Aug 08 at 5:50 am
Ben, I posted a really exciting comment with a link to the annual EU car accident reports (lots of statistics – yay!) but I think it got eaten by your spam blocker … I’ll see if I can find the link again. In a nutshell, the Spanish stats showed driving in Spain wasn’t too deadly, although the UK and Scandinavian countries were the safest.
Pepino
27 Aug 08 at 1:07 pm
I did my first bout of real driving in Spain last week, and found it to be a doddle. On the motorways, everyone kept to the right except when overtaking, which they would do and then move over afterwards. No one ever flashed me from behind on single carriageways (which I expected to happen if I stuck to the speed limit) and even the odd person waved me out of junctions in heavy traffic. I was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience.
Thinking back to car maintenance, I used to have a beat-up Nova SR back when they were still cool. I drove it into the ground with no thought for maintenance. When I took it for it´s MOT, they told me the brakes were worn beyond the pads and were grinding into the wheel, and the suspension was so screwed that, when they later went to fix it, they had to use a sledgehammer to break the wheel off the axis. It cost a fortune, waaaay more than the car was worth!
I´m a bit more careful these days, but I must admit, my approach to car maintenance is still a case of “just turn the radio up a bit”! That seems to solve any squeaks and grinding sounds!
PS. I ditched my last car last year, and feel quite liberated without it, which is ironic when you think about it
mateo
2 Sep 08 at 1:11 pm
You may leave with the broken bulb, but if the police sees you, they will usually stop you and make you change it (they even help you do it). If you don’t have the spare bulb, you get a couple of fines. And ‘inadequate lighting’ also gets you 2 points off of your driving licence.
Tomás
2 Sep 08 at 6:14 pm
A tip: The Guardia Civil will NEVER stop you for a broken light. And if they do, they can’t fine you, and they’re very stupid as well.
Why? Because it’s legal requirement to carry a set of spare lights in your car, but it is not a legal requirement to KNOW HOW to replace it.
In fact, if police stops you and asks you about the non-functional light, and you tell them that you haven’t replaced it because you don’t know how to do it and it was just fused on the trip (regardless of wether this is true or not), THEY are required by law to replace it by you.
Conclusion: They will never stop you, because they don’t want to have to replace your light.
Funny but true
steve hunter
21 Oct 08 at 7:11 pm
Re: bill & driving licences. You DO NOT need to get a Spanish driving licence if you are resident in Spain. I hold a UK driving licence (European style with photo) and you have to send this in to the authorities to have it registered on the National database. It comes back (after 3 months or so) with your Spanish NIE number lasered into it. How do I know? I´ve lived here for over 7 years and am fully aware of the legal requirements etc. for driving, ITV, taxes and so on. The Guardia Civil can also stop you for whatever reason they like. I was stopped once (“routine check, sir”), They were incredibly courteous and when all was found in order, the guy actually saluted me on my way.
Jon Green
7 Jun 09 at 9:49 pm
Hi, I have a house in Benalmadena Pueblo which is very much a holiday home at themoment. I have a UK registered Ford Mustang 1999 and a 1986 Jeep CJ7 on Irish Plates. Last year I paid a garage to take boyh vehicles in for an ITV The Mustang came back with a certificate for 2 years,but the Jeep had a certificate for 6 months only. Is this normal. Alao there were nostickers to affix to the windscreen. I have a suspicion that these vehicles never went to a test centre.How can I check Cheers Jon
ps The guy I bought the jeep off in Spain told me it didn need an ITV due to its age
paul
7 Nov 09 at 12:42 am
not pass in ireland and should not also some are not easy replaced without removing h/light etc i.m a mechanic and a vehicle tester the amont a bulbs i see fitted wrong