Spain steps up police checkpoints to stop Easter getaway traffic

Spain Guardia Civil said they have set up 150 road blocks across Spain’s main roads to discourage unauthorised journeys and will also be carrying out mobile surveillance.

Despite strict rules on when drivers are allowed to take the road, traffic at the start of the Easter break has increased as a minority defy orders to stay home and attempt to move to another part of the country.

Spain’s General Traffic Department (DGT) reported that there were traffic jams on main roads leading out of Madrid partly as a result of roadside checks on those attempting to leave the city.

Semana Santa is traditionally one of the busiest times on Spain’s roads, as well as Christmas and the start of the August summer holidays when millions of families leave the cities either to return to their family village or to head to the coast.

But police said the strategy to keep people at home was working with traffic down 70 percent on Spain’s highways during the first few days of Semana Santa compared to last year’s figures and traffic 75 percent less leaving and entering Spain’s largest cities.

This is people from the cities, which have the most infections, trying to head to relatives or second homes in coastal towns like the one I live in. Nobody is being arrested. They are either turned back or given a traffic ticket. But it does show that voluntary compliance doesn't work as well as it should. These are people who have known for weeks that they wouldn't be allowed to go and they go anyway. Even if they get here and decide they want to stay because it's more laid back than the city they have random police checks on main roads and at the stores to see if you are actually a local.

Feel better now?

For one thing, this isn't America we're talking about. This is Spain. We haven't been able to leave our homes except to go shopping or to the doctor since the 16th. Now you may say that it isn't useful but we haven't had any new cases since our original outbreak. And where did that outbreak come from? It came from a group of people who drove 80km from the city to our town then infected some other people once they arrived. That was before the travel ban. Now you may think that it's someone's God given right to travel from point A and infect people in point B but if you believe that they can go to your town.

If the government was efficient and the medical people had their act together they could test people who want to travel from the city to their homes on the coast, clear them and send them on their way. But they aren't. They were caught flat-footed and now they have to improvise. That could be the next step. We are a tourist town and the town will die without the revenue that outsiders bring in. It's just a matter of how much they are willing to put up with in order to get the money flowing back in, and for now the 27,000 people with 0 reported cases that's about as much as we can expect.

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