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It can be said that Spain has a tradition, dating back to the 1920s, of applying psychology to traffic accident prevention. This application of psychology was the first professional area of psychological intervention to be legally regulated in Spain, even before the formal existence of an academic field in psychology. From the 1930s on, without interruption, the same preventive model has prevailed, despite the different political regimes that have governed Spain. First, psychotechnicians in public centres that assessed professional drivers and, later, psychologists in private centres that assessed all drivers have been the leading figures in this history, the binding thread in what has come to be called the "Spanish model" of road safety. Several stages in the development of this model can be established, and they are largely coincident with the evolution of an autonomous, Spanish, psychological science. The current "Reglamento General de Conductores", which regulates drivers' licences, requires all candidates seeking to obtain or renew a driver's licence to undergo a physical and psychological examination at a private centre. This examination is also required for drivers seeking to recover licences lost under the penalty point system. The "Reglamento General de Conductores" maintains the same preventive model legalized in 1934. An empirical analysis of the use and validity of this model is presented. Driver assessment has played a key role in building modern, professional, Spanish psychology, and it is today the oldest existing element of the field. [TRANSLATION]

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