Lane discipline

As I get older and older, I often find myself remembering one thing from another. The link may be tenuous but that doesn't stop me. So, we'd just been to see María Terremoto in concert at the ADDA, and very good she was too. We'd done well; we'd driven through Alicante in both directions without putting a foot wrong, and parking had been dead easy. As we eased back onto the motorway heading for home, I commented on the white lines. They were nice and bright. They reminded me of a trip many years ago when the lines were far from bright.

It was 2007, and Maggie had moved for a job in Ciudad Rodrigo. I was going to join her when a building job on the house in Culebron was completed but, for now and for the coming long weekend, I'd got a bus ticket to go over to see her. It's a long way to Ciudad Rodrigo, more or less on the Portuguese border, but I was hoping to get my head down on the bus. I knew the bus station in Elda; I went there for the 2 a.m. bus. It never came. Well it probably did, it was me, I was in the wrong bus station. How was I supposed to know there were two bus stations? I'd booked time off work, Maggie was expecting me, I couldn't not go, so I went back to my parked, and rather crumpled, 1977 MGB GT and set out. As I've said, the bus was at 2 a.m., so it was now something like 3 a.m.; I'd been at work all day and then I'd been hanging around waiting for the bus. I was tired.

The thing I most vividly remember about that journey was that there were hardly any decent white lines along the whole length of the motorway run out to Madrid. The MGB didn't have LED matrix or adaptive headlights either. Every time I had one of those moments - an excursion onto the verge or into another lane - a combination of tiredness, dim lights and nonexistent lines, I would stop for a while to smoke a cigar and try to pep myself up a bit.

At about 8.30 in the morning, on the Ciudad Rodrigo side of Salamanca, with all the signs pointing to Portugal, I was suddenly confronted by one of those coned off controls, set up by the Guardia Civil traffic section. There was a queue of waiting traffic and, while I was there, stopped, I had one of those moments where I suddenly jerked awake after a little doze. A minute later and the policeman would have found me asleep at the wheel. When I eventually drew alongside the actual check, the Guardia did nothing, took one look at me and said, "Proceed." The rest of the journey was fine, and the car and I arrived unscathed.

It wasn't the first time I'd been stopped by the Guardia. That happened on a fast two-lane road that snakes from Jumilla through a wide flat valley onto the fringes of Castilla-La Mancha out Hellín way. It's not a busy road and yet, in the middle of nowhere, we were flagged down by a Guardia. He seemed to be much more interested in our funny foreign passports than he was in seeing my driving licence. Maybe there aren't a lot of us foreigners in the badlands between Murcia and old Castile.

I've been breathalysed maybe five times in Spain. The last one was quite a while ago now. They have been pretty obvious stops. The first I remember was on the exit road from the Benicàssim Pop Festival. "Please unwrap the mouthpiece, attach it to the breathalyser - blow, blow, keep blowing, stop. No problem, toddle along". Another time was just after we'd paid the toll on the Torrevieja motorway. Everyone who went through the toll was being breathalysed. It's not a busy motorway but imagine stopping everyone on a whole motorway. The only time I've ever been stopped when I've had a drink was very close to home. The Guardia pulled us on a roundabout coming out of Pinoso at fiesta time. I'd had a beer on the understanding that we would stay for at least two hours for the effects to diminish. I admitted my delinquent drinking to the Guardia; it didn't change the unwrap, connect, blow routine. "You're in the clear," he said. "Did you have anything to eat with your beer?" "No," I said. "Well, next time make sure that you have a tapita with your drink; it helps absorb the alcohol." I suspect that the DGT (The Traffic people) might not be pleased that their "not a drop at the wheel" message is being undermined by at least one of their foot soldiers.

Mostly the stops are just random and routine. They'll have a lane coned off and wave some vehicles in. Often they just give you a look and wave you by. Sometimes it's a bit more evil looking, with stingers at the ready and chase cars waiting a few metres down the road. The Guardia Civil is the force responsible for traffic so the controls are usually theirs, but not always. On the way back from a concert a National Police check at 2 a.m., just outside Monóvar, with the CNP officers wearing big commando boots and very military looking uniforms and toting pump-action shotguns rather deflated our good spirits. But my most surprising stop was by the Guardia just outside Fuente Álamo.

I was going to give an English class to a load of engineers. There was a lane closed off and the Guardia people flagged me in. I stopped and wound down the window and gave a cheery greeting. "Hands on the dashboard!" was their jovial riposte. Now, with your left hand, remove the key from the ignition. "It doesn't have a key," I said. They gave me a stern look and complicated instructions about opening the door and getting out of the car. "Hands on the roof, legs apart," they patted me down. I thought about all those Hollywood films where the white cops shoot the black guy. "What's in the boot?" they asked. "Lots of English textbooks," I said. As I opened the boot, with one heavily armed man on one side and both of them wearing flack jackets, I decided the time was ripe for a little jokelet – "If you're looking for an English class I may be able to help." They were not amused, but I think that, by then, both they and I recognised that they were not looking for me. The tension had passed, they sent me on my way. To this day I have no idea what they were looking for. It obviously had nothing to do with traffic; you don't need shotguns for uninsured or untaxed motors.

And all because the white lines were nice and bright.