DGT Theory Topic 7, Accidents: a Visual Summary

Topic 7 of the Spanish DGT syllabus, Los accidentes, has no road signs and no road markings. It is about why crashes happen and how to avoid them: speed, alcohol, tiredness, phones, the condition of the car and bad weather. Because most of it sounds like common sense, people treat it as the easy topic, and that is exactly why they lose points here. In this topic the wrong answers sound sensible too.

Below is the whole topic in visual form: the numbers you will be asked about, each one explained, a picture for every situation, the trick answers that come up again and again, and a short quiz with real DGT questions. You can sit the theory test in English, but keep an eye on the Spanish terms in grey: they are the words you will meet in the course and in Spanish versions of the questions.

What topic 7 covers

The book splits the causes of crashes into three factors: the person, the vehicle, and the road and its surroundings. Each part of the topic deals with one of them.

Why accidents matter: costs and risk factors

A road accident does not only hurt the people in the cars: society as a whole pays for it. The exam uses four categories of cost, and a typical question gives you an example and asks which one it belongs to.

The classic trap: rehabilitation is a medical cost, not a human one. A quick way to decide is to ask what breaks or who steps in. A person suffers: human. A treatment is paid for: medical. An object breaks: material. Services and paperwork get involved: administrative.

Almost every crash could have been avoided. Between 70 % and 90 % are mainly caused by the human factor: speed, alcohol, distraction, sleepiness or fatigue. The vehicle and the road matter far less, but they still count. Watch the classification: ice, snow, a wet surface and roadworks belong to the road and environment factor, not to the vehicle.

Where and when crashes happen, according to the book:

• More crashes in town, more deaths outside town. If the question asks where most fatal accidents happen, the answer is interurban roads (vías interurbanas).
• Motorways and dual carriageways are the safest roads: a central reservation, no level crossings with other roads, no tight bends. Ordinary single-carriageway roads are the most dangerous.
• There are more crashes on straights than on bends. On a familiar straight you relax; on a difficult bend you concentrate.
• The worst hours are the commute, especially the trip home from work: hurry, heavy traffic and poor light. Weekend nights and the big holiday getaways (Easter, summer, December) are also high-risk.

Vulnerable road users

Vulnerable road users are those more likely to be involved in a crash or to come off worse: children, young people and the elderly, and anyone travelling without a car body around them.

• Young drivers. Road crashes are the leading cause of death in Spain between the ages of 15 and 29. Lack of experience, alcohol and speed, plus showing off in front of friends: a young driver with mates in the car takes more risks than one driving alone.
• Older drivers. Reflexes and eyesight decline; the advice is familiar routes, avoiding rush hour and talking to the doctor about their medication.
• Motorcycles and mopeds. Only the helmet protects them. The most common crash is a head-on or front-side collision with a car whose driver did not see them, at junctions and when overtaking. Not wearing a helmet is one of the main causes of death. Since RD 518/2026 an approved helmet is compulsory on every road, gloves on interurban roads and closed footwear everywhere.
• Cyclists. Most crashes happen in summer, in good weather, at weekends and on ordinary interurban roads. Serious injuries are almost always to the head.
• Pedestrians. More are hit in town; outside town there are fewer collisions but nearly all are fatal. Children and older people are the most exposed.

When you overtake a cyclist on an interurban road, leave at least 1.5 m to the side. You may move into the opposite lane, even across a solid line, if you can see clearly and nothing is coming. In town, if you are behind a bike in the same lane, stay 5 metres back. And before reversing out of a garage, get out and look: small children do not show up in the mirror.

Speed, reaction time and stopping distance

The exam separates two ideas. Excessive speed (velocidad excesiva) means going over the limit. Inappropriate speed (velocidad inadecuada) means staying within the limit but going too fast for the rain, fog, roadworks or traffic. That is why you can cause a crash without breaking the speed limit: the limit is a ceiling, not a target.

The faster you go, the narrower your field of view, the worse you notice signs, the more tense you get and the sooner fatigue arrives. Your ability to react and anticipate drops with speed. Your reaction time, on the other hand, stays the same; what changes is how many metres you travel during it.

These are rough figures for a car with good brakes and tyres. Braking distance gets longer with more speed, more load, a wet surface, snow or ice, and with worn brakes, tyres or shock absorbers. A loaded vehicle brakes worse than an empty one; "the load presses the car onto the road so it brakes better" is a trap.

Fatigue, sleep, illness and medicines

Fatigue builds up after hours behind the wheel: yawning, shifting in the seat, a stiff neck and, the symptom the DGT asks about most, frequent blinking and heavy eyes. A tired driver drives more passively and reacts later, but also gets more irritable and takes more risks. The cure is a 20 to 30 minute break every 2 hours or 200 km, good ventilation and a cabin at 20 to 23 °C.

Sleepiness peaks at night, in the small hours, and in the early afternoon after lunch. It causes crashes before you are fully asleep: a micro-sleep of two seconds is enough. Coffee and energy drinks help for a while, then sleep comes back all at once. Loud music and an open window do not work either: the only answer is to stop and sleep.

Illness and its treatment also count. If you take medicine on your own initiative, even for a cold, ask a doctor before you drive. Alcohol plus medicines strengthens the effects of both. With a chronic illness, you lower the risk by avoiding whatever triggers a crisis. Stress makes you more hostile to other road users, not more careful. Even allergies matter: one sneeze at 100 km/h means more than 50 metres with your eyes shut.

Distractions: phones, hands-free, satnav and smoking

Distraction lies behind one in three fatal crashes. At 90 km/h, one second looking at your phone is 25 metres without watching the road. Drivers aged 18 to 25 and over 70 get distracted most, and it happens most on motorways and dual carriageways, in summer and on holiday trips.

• Phone in your hand: banned even when you are stopped at a red light. It costs €200 and 6 points. Earphones connected to the phone are banned too. The typical phone crash is running off the road.
• Hands-free: allowed, but not harmless. After a minute and a half of conversation a driver stops noticing a large share of road signs, hands-free or not.
• Satnav: plan the route before you set off and do not obey the device over your own judgement; it does not know that a street is closed.
• Smoking: it distracts you, the smoke gets in your eyes, and smokers have twice as many crashes.

Alcohol and drugs

The lower limit applies during the first two years of the licence that covers that vehicle and, however experienced you are, to lorries over 3,500 kg, buses with more than 9 seats, school and child transport, dangerous goods and emergency services. Even below the limit, alcohol already affects concentration and slows your reactions: only 0.0 is safe.

The myths the exam tries to slip past you: coffee, a cold shower, eating or drinking water do not lower your alcohol level; only time does. Blood alcohol starts to fall one hour after you stop drinking, and someone who drank in the evening can test positive the next morning. Alcohol hits harder in women, slim people, people who rarely drink, under-18s and over-65s.

No drug improves driving, not even "if you are used to it". Cocaine can make you more competitive and aggressive; cannabis slows your reactions and makes you sleepy; ecstasy causes visual illusions; amphetamines hide tiredness and make drivers overrate what they can do.

The vehicle: active safety, passive safety and ADAS

Active safety helps you avoid the crash: brakes and ABS, tyres, suspension, steering, lights, ESP and driver assistance systems. Passive safety limits the harm once the crash has happened: seat belt, airbag, head restraint, body and chassis, helmet and child seats. An answer that lumps brakes together with airbags is wrong.

Driver assistance systems (ADAS) assist, they do not drive for you. You stay responsible, and a modern car can still crash if it is misused. The ones that come up most: FCW warns of a collision, AEB brakes by itself, LDW warns when you drift out of lane and LKA steers you back; the blind-spot system BSIS can actually intervene. Start-Stop exists to save fuel and cut CO₂ emissions.

More vehicle facts the DGT likes:

• Tyres: bad tyres are the main cause of crashes put down to the vehicle. Replace them below 1.6 mm of tread, after 5 years even if they look new, and if they are cut or deformed. A higher speed rating than recommended is fine; a lower one is not.
• Brakes: the footbrake works on all four wheels; the handbrake is for parking; engine braking is for long descents. ABS lets you keep steering under hard braking; it does not "always shorten the stopping distance". With ABS, press hard and keep pressing even when the pedal vibrates.
• Worn shock absorbers can make you lose control because the car leans too much in bends.
• Steering: have it checked if the car pulls to one side when you let go of the wheel on a flat straight road.
• Headlights: dirt scatters the beam and dazzles others. Adaptive lights turn into the bend; they are not brighter.

Seat belts, airbags, child seats and head restraints

A seat belt almost halves the risk of dying in a crash. It is compulsory in every seat, in town and out of town, airbag or not. The diagonal strap goes over the collarbone, the lap strap over the pelvis, never across the stomach, and both tight. Since RD 518/2026 the old exemptions for taxi drivers, delivery drivers and driving instructors are gone.

The airbag works with the belt, not instead of it: without a belt it can cause serious injuries. Sit 10 to 25 cm from the steering wheel and keep objects such as a satnav holder away from where it deploys.

Children 135 cm tall or under travel in a child restraint chosen by height and weight, not age, on the back seat; the rear middle seat is the safest. If you fit a rear-facing seat in the front, switch off the front airbag for that seat.

The head restraint protects against whiplash, above all in a rear-end collision: its centre at eye level and as close to the head as possible, never more than 4 cm away.

Road and weather: grip, skids, wind, rain, fog and snow

Grip (adherencia) is how well the tyre holds the road. It drops in the rain, and thick fog also leaves the surface damp and slippery. When a tyre loses grip the car skids, usually because a control was used too abruptly, above all braking hard in the middle of a bend.

• Oversteer: the rear slides out. Steer towards the side the rear is going, without stamping on the brake.
• Understeer: the car carries straight on in a bend. Ease off the accelerator and reduce the steering angle a little.
• Centrifugal force: take a left-hand bend too fast and the car drifts to the right, towards the outside. Brake before the bend and accelerate gently on the way out.
• Crosswind: hold the wheel firmly and do not speed up to compensate. When passing a lorry in strong wind, the car can be pulled towards it as you enter its shelter and pushed sideways as you leave it.
• Rain and aquaplaning: the only real defence is slowing down, with properly inflated tyres and enough tread.
• Fog: dipped beam and rear fog light. On a dual carriageway you may drop below 60 km/h if visibility requires it. Do not follow the tail lights in front as a guide.
• Snow and ice: pull away in the highest gear you can, usually second, and climb hills slowly at a steady speed. Chains go on when the tyres lose grip, not "whenever it snows". On ice, braking distance can be up to ten times longer.

Trick answers in topic 7

In this topic the wrong option usually sounds reasonable. These come up most often:

A quick rule: if one answer says "only", "always", "never" or "under no circumstances" and the others are more nuanced, be suspicious. In topic 7 the right answer usually carries a qualifier such as "may", "even with hands-free" or "not in every case".

Mini quiz: 8 real exam questions

These are official DGT questions on topic 7, translated from the Spanish. Pick an answer to see whether you got it and why.

How to learn topic 7 without memorising 100 pages

There is a lot of text in this topic but only a few core ideas: the human factor causes most crashes, speed makes everything worse, alcohol and tiredness slow your reactions, and the car's systems help but cannot perform miracles. Once you understand why each rule exists, most questions answer themselves.

To revise the numbers from every topic at once, use the DGT exam cheat sheet: speed limits, alcohol limits, points and distances on one page.