Changes to motoring legislation - spare bulbs no longer required

The Spanish department of transport (DGT) has changed its legislation with regards to spare bulbs being carried in cars in Spain - there is no longer any obligation for drivers to carry them.

The law whereby drivers were previously required to carry a spare set of headlamp bulbs in their vehicles has now come to an end. Now that car headlights have become more difficult to replace even in the garage, let alone at the roadside, most drivers just carried a random box of spare bulbs just to avoid being fined.

A little more than a year ago the Transport Authority announced that the Guardia would no longer impose such fines, even though it remained as a serious offence in motoring legsitlation.

Now the DGT director, Pepe Navarro, has apologised to those drivers who have been fined over the previous year and has said the obligation to carry bulbs is to be taken out of the 1998 rules by ministerial order. It’s removal will be printed in the BOE, official state bulletin, with immediate effect.

The traffic authority had been collecting some two million € in these fines, imposing some 13,000 every year.