Where your car is more likely to get dents and scratches – Spain’s best and worst drivers

Two pieces of advice about driving given when moving to Spain in the 1990s were “Sound the car horn!” and “Watch out for that car! It’s from Pontevedra!”

Many may have noted on older Spanish cars, letters used to denote in which Spanish province a car was registered. M for Madrid, MA for Malaga, B for Barcelona, BA for Badajoz, and so on. Back in those days, poor Pontevedra in Galicia, with a PO numberplate, had a bit of a bad reputation for drivers who like to put pedal to the metal, as did cars with Portuguese number plates. Whether this was true about the drivers from those places is debatable. However, car insurance premiums are not.

Car insurance reveals where best & worst drivers are in Spain

A recent study by Unespa, Spain’s insurance industry association, with Kelisto’s Car Insurance Price Index, has shed light on driving habits across Spain, revealing which places have the safest and most reckless drivers, something to keep in mind when choosing which car to buy and where to live. The data also highlights significant trends in accident rates based on age, gender, and location.

According to Kelisto, the average car insurance premium in Spain hit a record high of €991 per year in Q2 2025, a 2.66 per cent increase from the previous quarter. Where you live significantly affects these costs, largely due to varying accident rates across provinces.

Who are the most accident prone car drivers in Spain

The study shows, unsurprisingly, that those drivers under 35 are the most accident-prone, with a staggering 144.9 per cent likelihood of being involved in a crash, nearly four times higher than drivers aged 61-65, who have the lowest accident rate at 37.1 per cent. Other age groups fall in between, with drivers aged 56 to 60 at 80 per cent and those aged 41-45 at 89.6 per cent. Sex also plays a role, with men responsible for seven out of ten accidents in Spain, emphasising the clear disparity in driving behaviour.

When it comes to minor accidents, dinks, bumps, and scratches in the supermarket car park, for example, Madrid, Sevilla, Malaga, Ceuta, and Melilla top the list as the places where you probably don’t want an expensive car and where both men and women drive the most recklessly. Conversely, Albacete, Avila, Caceres, Guipuzcoa, and Zamora are home to the safest drivers when it comes to minor incidents.

However, for serious accidents, Melilla, Ceuta, Las Palmas, Cadiz, and Sevilla rank as the worst for both sexes. On the other hand, women drive most safely in Segovia, Teruel, Huesca, Avila, and Soria, while men absolutely excel in Soria, Huesca, Teruel, Avila, and Segovia.

Overall, the data paints a clear picture: Melilla, Ceuta, Sevilla, Las Palmas, and Malaga are Spain’s worst cities for driving safety, while Huesca, Palencia, Soria, Teruel, and Ciudad Real boast the nation’s best drivers.

With approximately 35 million vehicles registered in Spain, excluding “zombie cars” that remain unregistered and unused in garages, the findings show the need for targeted road safety measures and indicate where your insurance will be highest.