Driving in Spain

We rented a car via Auto Europe, which brokers various places, and we actually were renting through Europcar. The prices through Auto Europe are excellent compared to directly booking. If you google "driving in Spain", the articles that come up paint a dismal picture of Spanish drivers. You're advised to be careful, etc. Well, of course you should be careful driving anywhere, but in my experience, driving in the countryside, small towns, the freeways, and in Barcelona rush hour, Spanish drivers are better than US drivers. There is lane discipline, everyone follows the road signs, signage is good and generally, everyone drives well. Though there were some people driving slow in the #2 when the slow lane is empty, and inconsistent indicator use (esp useful anticipating where cars are going in the roundabouts). But really, nothing out of the ordinary. One thing I didn't find information about on the internet which I was slightly worried about was how the toll system works on the Spanish toll roads. Well, here's how they work: there are two methods of charging tolls. One is where you enter a controlled section by stopping and getting a starting ticket, after which, the gate opens are off you zoom. The other is that a given section of road has a fixed charge. In either case, at the end (or when you exit), you arrive at a toll booth. There are 3 types of lanes: one is for "manual", i.e. pay by cash. One is "automatic", for which you need some sort of transceiver. The third one is for credit cards. I was slightly worried that the credit card machines would take only Euro-style cards, i.e those with PIN chips in them, but no, US credit cards work fine. I was fooled by the graphic indicating which way to put your card in the slot. It was very confusing, but just know that it's stripe side down, with stripe on the bottom right. You could, of course, pay with cash, but those lines tended to be longer. Finally, Europcar seems to run a bit of a scam. We picked up our car at the Girona train station. The agent told me that the car was full of fuel, but added that the fuel gauge didn't indicate full, and that's just how it was. So of course, I believed him. But upon filling up the car before returning it, the fuel gauge indicated full as one would expect, and thus their lie about it not being able to corrrectly show full was shown. This little scam probably saves them a few liters per car. Add that up by all their cars, and that's free money, but definitely very scammy.