Some forty years ago Spain was in the backwater of Europe. Ever since the end of the 70s the country has went through a dramatic change that has put in among the most developed nations in the world. One area of heavy investment in the country has been infrastructure. Today Spain boasts one of most well-developed transportation systems in the world.

The Spanish motorway is among the best such systems in the world and is the forth longest after the ones in the United States, China and Russia. Here you must take into consideration the size of Spain which is times smaller than that of the other countries. Now Spain has approximately 14 thousand kilometers of high quality motorways.

There is a historical categorization of motorways in Best Car Hire Spain that divides them in autopista and autovia. Autopistas are highways constructed specifically for the use of cars. The vehicles that use them must sustain a minimum of 60 km/p. These roads are now upgrades from older ones but completely new roads. Most of them are toll roads and require a small fee in order for citizens to use them.

Autovias are high capacity roads that are most often an upgrade of an oler existing road. Other vehicles, agricultural machines and bicycles can travel on them under certain restrictions. Because autovias are built on top or following closely older roads they are less sophisticated than autopistas. There acceleration and deceleration lanes are shorter, turns are tighter and steeper, at places there might be no service lane or bus stop locations.

There are many similarities between the two types of motorways. Both are divided highway roads with full access control. Both have at least two lanes in each direction. Speed limit regulated by the legislation in the country is between 60 and 20 km/h.