Club 80-90 Forums

Krisis wrote:Hi All
Just got back from Almunecar, Spain and having spoken to locals English, Spanish and the Guardia Civil they are MEGA tight on right hand drives with some hurendous fines!!!!!!!!!!

What do they fine you for? If the vehicle is legally registered and ligit in an EU member state they can't stop it circulating in traffic within the EU, so long as it carrys a country of registration identifyer (GB sticker/europlates) and the headlamps are ajusted apropreately. Is it a perminant import thing or if your cought driving a british registered vehicle which hasn't but should be re registered perminant import?

For under 6 months it shouldn't be deamed perminantly imported, maybe get an MOT before going so you can prove it was in the UK within 6 months? Will buy you some time but I guess the van won't be worth much outside a RHD market.

Hi Glen,
I hope you are well and not working to hard?

I take it that you have not had the pleasure of meeting the 'Guardia Civil'
They are total and complete bastards !!!!

True story time
An english teacher at my wifes school got stopped by them because she had no seat belt on, after holding her on the road for an hour or so, checking all of the vehicle, inside and out, all of the paper work etc they then fined her 150 Euros OUCH!
Then 15 minutes later, the same guys, they stopped a teaching assistant from the same school for the same thing, checked her papers and she got a 50 Euro fine and gone within 10 minutes, OUCH but not so much.
Both of the cars were newish vehicles and the only difference was that one was LHD spanish plates on and the other RHD with UK plates on!

The law and the Guardia are not connected at times, you dont argue with them!
They have guns and truncheons and are not afraid to use them, if they want to target you they will and do and UK RHD cars are picked on!!!!!

TTFN Krippled Kris

Remind me to give Spain a wide birth on any major excursions....

Are I get it! Interesting to see what they write on the paperwork though. Probubly rip it up when you hand over cash.

I've never met them but it sounds like I might if I ever take my RHD seatbeltless landy to Morocco, though I'll contest it if I wasn't speeding as it won't be ilegal. The best way to deal with corupt coppers is just do as they say but make a big deal of taking down their ID numbers and get a recept (easy to do obveously even if you can't speek to each other). Though they might be corupt and meanising, they are probubly more scared of their supereours if directly acused of coruption - works for Russian coppers anyway who sometimes display the worlds faverate gun. Fines with large bribe (often 100% bribe as they rip it up after) are usally reduiced to the max ofical limit (about a tenner for speeding I think) or dropped completely when they think they'll get in trouble for not playing fair.

The EUs not that bad really for foregn EU travelers if you carry all the required safety crap (which Spain seems perticularly needy about), further a field its quite amusing the stuff they'll try and do foreners for. Its hard trying to keep a dumb and confused looking face and pretend you have know idea what "100 dollar" might mean.

Glen,
You nearly hit the nail on the head but they are slightly more devious with the paper work, remember they have had a lot of practice.

As for taking the landy to morocco get all paperwork translated / presented and stamped by the spanish embassy here in the UK and you should not have a problem. The other thing is that they would not see the vehicle on a regular basis as you would be passing through and not bumming around a resort or town.

The only reason I can imagine that they would be scared of their superiors is that they got caught out. The bosses had to cover it up and / or bury it in paperwork until interest was lost.
TTFN Kris