August the first, the traditional start of the holiday season for many Spanish, saw some long tailbacks of traffic accumulate on the roads of Malaga province at the weekend.

Returning day trippers to the Costa’s beaches added to the pressure on the roads on Sunday afternoon which led to jams totalling some 25-kilometres according to the roads authority, the DGT.

During the General Directorate of Traffic’s second summer operation, that was activated from noon on Friday, the authority had anticipated some 207,000 long-distance trips by road in the province. Despite this, during the morning the traffic flowed well despite the greater volume of vehicles on the access roads to the main tourists towns on both the western and eastern coastlines.

However, the situation was complicated on Sunday afternoon when a good number of those who had spent the day on the beach headed back to the roads.

In Malaga, a minor accident on the MA-20 near Guadalmar generated three and a half kilometres of traffic jams. The largest tailbacks, as usual, were on the A-7. At the eastern end of the Costa del Sol, eight kilometres of tailbacks were reached at Rincón de la Victoria, heading towards Malaga. On the western side of the coast, traffic was also heavy on the coast road and there was a two-kilometre traffic jam as it passes through San Pedro.

Throughout the day, a DGT helicopter was deployed carrying out surveillance and traffic control missions. In addition, the Guardia Civil’s traffic section also reinforced their usual presence to try and keep the traffic moving.