Highway authority considers 30km/h speed limit in cities

The DGT, Spain's highway authority, is investigating the possibility of imposing a 30km/h speed limit on all single-lane, two-way streets in urban areas, regardless of whether there is a speed-limit sign or not. "The intention is to pass a royal decree this year," DGT sources said during the Cities Conference for Road Safety in Córdoba.

The aim of the measure, proposed by the Spanish Municipalities and Provinces Federation, is to reduce accidents by 50 percent as well as reduce pollution, explained Anna Ferrer, director of the Road Safety Monitoring Agency.

"At 70km/h nobody is saved; at 50, 50 percent are saved and at 30, 95 percent are saved," said DGT director Pere Navarro of pedestrian fatalities, adding that in 2009, 269 people were killed in road accidents in Spain- 46 percent of them in cities.

The Environment Ministry in January requested shock measures to combat pollution in big cities, directed at reducing the contamination caused by urban traffic. Regional and local governments have been facing a growing backlash against their inaction over pollution levels in Spain's major cities, which in the case of Madrid have regularly exceeded EU legal limits over the past decade.

In Barcelona, recent high pollution levels forced Artur Mas' new Catalan regional government to postpone its promised revocation of an 80km/h limit on city approach roads.