This is the speed camera on the A-7 in Malaga province that issues the second-highest number of fines in Spain

Malaga province holds an unenviable record: its roads are among those that register the most speeding fines issued year after year, above areas with much larger populations ... and more cars. This sad news appears in the statistics of the "50 point and section radars that are least respected", drawn up by Spain's Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT). In its latest update using 2023 data, Malaga has the speed camera that issues the second highest number of fines in the country, only behind one in Madrid.

This is the speed camera at kilometre point 968.2 of the A-7 motorway within the Rincón de la Victoria bypass where traffic has grown exponentially in recent years due to the flood of people who have settled down in this municipality, as well as around Vélez-Málaga and other areas of the Axarquía. It is worth remembering that this stretch has several successive bends and so the speed is limited to 80 km/h. In 2023 no less than 66,869 fines were issued here.

The number one spot is currently held by the speed camera at kilometre 20.2 of the M-40 in the region of Madrid where 118,149 drivers were snapped speeding. Bear in mind though that Malaga has been number one in several of the previous 'charts' as SUR has been monitoring these figures for more than a decade.

Doubly unfortunate is the fact that the aforementioned speed camera is not the only heavy finer in Malaga province: the statistics provide further locations where infractions occur in volume that do not exactly put Malaga drivers in a good light in terms of respect for, and adherence to, the highway code. With third place going to a radar located in Navarra, the fourth placed one in the country to catch speeding drivers is an old acquaintance: the one everyone calls "the Cerrado de Calderón speed camera". This veteran of automated speed control is located near the exit for El Palo on the eastbound side of Malaga city's ring road in the direction of Almeria. Again the maximum speed is limited to 80km/h with the radar imposing 45,522 fines in a one-year period.

It goes on and on: we now know that in Malaga there are two of the 10 most active speed cameras in the country, but there are seven in total of the 50 that form part of the national ranking by the DGT. Of these, three are at different points along the A-7 motorway and, in addition to the two mentioned previously, there is a section speed camera inside one of the Torrox tunnels, heading in the direction of Almeria with a speed limit of 100km/h. Remember that controls of this type measure the maximum speed constantly, over many metres, not just at a specific point as happens with fixed radar.

The access to Malaga city from Antequera on the Las Pedrizas motorway, the A-45, has two busy devices: one section speedcam at the Casabermeja tunnels (maximum 80 km/h at all times). Then the downhill section just past the fork between the dual carriageway and the AP-46 motorway, at the top of the mountain pass (maximum 100 km/h).

The list is completed by two very different point radars: one is in a full-on city location on the MA-20 westbound ring road just before the Carlos Haya 'false' tunnel in the direction of Cadiz. This is one of the newer ones and was installed to reduce the very high accident rate at this very spot. It is on a downhill section with an 80 km/h limit. The second is located well inland, specifically on what is known as the Carretera del Arco (A-356), which connects with the Axarquía. The speedcam is installed at kilometre 36.5 in the municipality of La Viñuela.

The subdelegation of the Spanish government has declined SUR's request for the provincial branch of the DGT in Malaga to review these data. AEA's president, Mario Arnaldo, agreed to review the data on fines issued and concluded: "In Malaga they have risen dramatically." Specifically, penalties for speeding have increased by 22% compared to the previous year, much higher than the general result, which takes into account any cause (drink-driving, seatbelts, mobile phones and so on), which is up by 5.4%.

Among the causes this motoring expert has several hypotheses. The first is that the top spot in the province for the speed camera issuing most fines has changed from year to year, something which, in his opinion, depends on how often they are active - as they can be switched on and off for maintenance purposes - and not so much on the attitude of the drivers. Therefore, in last year's ranking there were several on the A-7 and the MA-20 that do not appear, or appear much further down the list, in the latest data.

In addition to this, there are other reasons like the high volume of traffic on the main network and the fact that there are more tourists in this province - they are not regular users and therefore do not know the roads and the location of the controls, especially in high season. However, Arnaldo highlighted one issue above all: "Drivers do not perceive the speed limit of the radars to be appropriate, especially the 80 km/h speed limit, and therefore exceed it without realising it."