Illegal road races now top priority for traffic police after several fatal accidents

Until a few months ago, boy racers from all over the country would happily upload videos of their latest illegal races or high-speed antics onto video-sharing sites such as YouTube. However, since the traffic police began to patrol the information superhighway as if it were an asphalt one, successfully prosecuting several drivers on the basis of their videos, the number of clips posted has dropped dramatically.

But that's not to say it is not still going on. There are currently five large-scale operations against illegal road races, which have partly come about after a married couple was killed in January when their vehicle was hit by a boy racer.

Galicia, Andalusia, the Basque Country, Valencia, Catalonia and Asturias are the regions with the most instances of illegal races, with nearly 100 such competitions detected throughout Spain during the last nine months. Plain-clothes police officers are regularly sent to infiltrate the meetings in order to identify the participants, but locating them is not easy, as the clandestine events are often moved to other areas once the surveillance is detected.

Only once the police have relaxed their monitoring will the meets return to their favourite areas, which tend to be business parks, long, well-asphalted straits, avenues with traffic circles for cars, or mountain roads with long swooping curves for motorcyclists.

Police scanners

in many cases use police scanners so they have advance warning of the arrival ofThe organisers block off access roads to the area they are using for the race, and the authorities. But it's not all about racing. Sometimes the meets are top-speed competitions, while on other occasions they are about skills at the wheel - which still, of course, endanger spectators, who, informed of the meeting via text message, can often number into the hundreds.

Galicia is the region where the problem is most pronounced, the police having received reports of a Ferrari and a Mitsubishi racing each other at speeds of over 200km/h, or a meet with some 100 drivers of high-powered vehicles surrounded by scores of spectators.

Málaga regularly sees young people arriving from other provinces to attend illegal races. But the practice has claimed at least three lives in recent years: that of a child and two competitors.

In the Valencian city of Castellón, the police have had to intervene at a business park in Almassora, where dozens of cars and motorbikes would turn up, while in Barcelona, the authorities have to constantly monitor mountain roads, which attract motorcyclists eager to put each other to the test.

[March 2008]

[Copyright El Pais / ELSA GRANDA 2008]