In belgium, a red traffic light means that you have to stop and wait until it turns green. In Spain, I'm not so sure about what it means. It almost seems as if a red traffic light means that you can stop if you want. And if you don't feel like stopping, just speed up a little and maybe you will make it. At least that is what I see every day.

Until I tried it one day, and was immediately stopped by an officer. I tried to act like I didn't speak any Spanish, but he didn't believe me. He just wrote "90 euros" on a piece of paper and said that I had to pay immediately or he would have to confiscate my car.
So I acted like I didn't know why I had to pay anything. And when he said to me in Spanish: "you just passed a red traffic light!", I said: "amarillo!!" (which means yellow in Spanish, by the way). After 10 minutes he got a little desperate and just let me go without a fine.


Other Spanish driving habits I get nervous about: acting like the right lane on the highway doesn't exist, and starting to honk the moment the traffic light turns green. You need a lot of patience on the Spanish roads.