Spanish Red Diamonds

Everyone who has ever seen a Spanish truck will have seen the red diamonds on tractor units indicating the Province the vehicle is registered in i.e. MA - Malaga, A - Alicante, AL - Almeria etc…

What is the purpose of the red diamond which has NO Province abbreviation within it - where the space above the vertical bar is left blank?

and also why are some round and some a different colour?

Hombre:
Everyone who has ever seen a Spanish truck will have seen the red diamonds on tractor units indicating the Province the vehicle is registered in i.e. MA - Malaga, A - Alicante, AL - Almeria etc…

What is the purpose of the red diamond which has NO Province abbreviation within it - where the space above the vertical bar is left blank?

This one no one can explain to me as to why some have no abbreviation, I will keep on trying to find out.

euromat:
and also why are some round and some a different colour?

Up until about 2 years ago you had square ones and round ones.
The square ones were for vehicles licenced for local work only and were limited to within 100 kms radius of their base.

The Round ones were for vehiles doing regional work and were limited to about 200 kms radius of their base.

Going back even further in time you had the red ones which were for heavy transport above 7,5 tons and the blue ones which were for under 7,5 tons.

What’s the operator licencesing system like these days in Spain ?. Does it take into account quantity of operators or just a quality system. How difficult is it if you want to start up ?.

Just to confuse the issue even further, there are also Blue diamonds witha yellow border and white diamonds with a black border - I think they are to do with various types of “own account” operations, but am probably barking up the wrong tree.

Ex Haulier:
What’s the operator licencesing system like these days in Spain ?. Does it take into account quantity of operators or just a quality system. How difficult is it if you want to start up ?.

So long as you fulfill the financial requirements you are usually ok, here you do not even need a base of operations as far as they are concerned you can do it from home, where you park the trucks is your problem

So long as you fulfill the financial requirements you are usually ok, here you do not even need a base of operations as far as they are concerned you can do it from home, where you park the trucks is your problem
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Tell me about it parking the trailer in Getafe is like trying to find a parking space on the services on a night out in the UK there is trailers from everywhere Coca Cola, Mahou and shipping containers they come from other industrial estates I’ m lucky the company I work for have a piece of land were I can park the unit it would fit the trailer but I would never get it out because of the double parking of cars :imp:

The white diamonds are for own account trasport not for hire or reward usually accompanied with a white rectangualer sticker with MP on the red diamond have a SP sticker, I did go to the trouble to find out what they mean but I’ve forgot.

If you see this one youre behind me!

The ones with no letters on are usually on trucks with multi depots I thought it might be that the truck is not alocated to one particular depot or it could be the Spanish way of doing things and they can’t be arsed putting a letter on.

langp29:

The white diamonds are for own account trasport not for hire or reward usually accompanied with a white rectangualer sticker with MP on the red diamond have a SP sticker, I did go to the trouble to find out what they mean but I’ve forgot.

If you see this one youre behind me!

The ones with no letters on are usually on trucks with multi depots I thought it might be that the truck is not alocated to one particular depot or it could be the Spanish way of doing things and they can’t be arsed putting a letter on.

MP is Mercancias Propios = Own account goods
SP is Servicio Publico = Hire and Reward

diamonds with no letters are used when the company is based in more than region or the vehicle is a hire vehicle

this is why acotral have some with MA as the head office is in malaga but some are blank because they work in different areas on the mercadona contract or are lease hired or rental vehicles

Thanks James, I knew I should have asked you in the first place!

Now this might be a bit more difficult. Still in Spain but not trucks - do you have any idea what the signs are that are regularly seen in fields/campo areas which are oblong diagonally bisectted with white at the top and black at the bottom? My theory is they are some sort of boundary marker.

The signs in campos/fields,may be to do with underground pipes,such as water/gas or electricity,so a JCB digger crew dont dig a pipe up,thats in the ground,but i may be wrong on that one.

i could be way off here mark but if you see them where it says coto privado caza its something to do with hunting and shooting but toby’s idea about pipes and cables sounds plausible too.

i see you and davey hotpot are parked up behind lidl’s are you home for the weekend? if so lets all have a beer i’m away monday for langenfeld again!!!