NUMBERS DOWN TO FEWEST IN 50 YEARS

September 2, 2009

Spain's road-death toll during its summer holiday fell to the fewest for nearly half a century.

The government believes its new road-safety policies are working: a combination of a licence penalty points introduced in July 2006 and stiffer penalties for traffic violations - especially alcohol and driving.

The country's Traffic Authority also doubled the number of radar traps across the country for two weeks during the August holiday.

There were 377 road deaths in Spain between July 1 and August 31, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said - down from the 447 of 2009 and the fewest since 1962 when 340 people died but then there were way fewer vehicles on Spanish roads.

The figures showed that the government's road safety policy "is getting results," he told a news conference with the fall particularly marked among young people - "the drivers of the future".

The number of road deaths in 2008 was down by 20 percent from the previous year.

South Africa has been bumbling along for years trying to get a penalty-points system up and running. - AFP