Anybody that has driven up the Cabra road will have been impressed by its tight bends and vertical drops. These characteristics make it a perfect testing ground for new models of cars and car adverts. It shares this ‘honour’ with the A-395, which is the road that connects Granada to the Sierra Nevada.
The trouble is, when you unwittingly meet one of these prototypes being pushed to the limits on tight bends, you really are risking your life. Many people say that until somebody dies, nothing will be done about it – now somebody has.
At the very beginning of last month, a car belonging to Department of the Environment ran smack into a prototype vehicle on La Cabra. One of the occupants of the governmental car was killed, as well as the driver and co-pilot of the Mercedes that was under trial.
The car, which had been on the typical route Sierra Nevada-Costa Granadina via La Cabra, was just one of the increasing number of test vehicles using this route, with over 100 of them doing so during July.
The Guardia Civil have fined the drivers of these cars on numerous occasions, but not so much for excess of speed, but for dangerous manoeuvring, such as dangerous braking actions on bends, rapid de-acceleration on downhill stretches and occupying the sides of roads, waiting for other test cars.
But we’re not only talking about fast cars, but also large lorries, vans and trailers, which sometimes are loaded with thousands of kilos of ballast. These drive very slowly, causing extended tailbacks.
Basically, these are public roads and not commercial test tracks and should not be used as such.