32 people died in accidents on Spanish roads over the nine-day Easter holiday period, it was confirmed on Monday by the Spanish General Direction of Traffic (DGT).

The DGT figures run from April 11 to Sunday, although Monday is also a holiday in the Basque region as well as in Catalonia, Castilla-La Mancha, Valencia and Navarra.

The 2014 figures are worse than for the 2013 Easter holidays when 26 people died in road accidents, despite the fact that the DGT has predicted this year's Easter holidays would see 12.5 million road trips made in Spain, around 500,000 less than in 2013.

The 12.5 million is the lowest number of journeys made by road over the Easter period in Spain since 2005 when the DGT reported a total of 12 million journeys. This is slightly surprising given that this year's holiday period occurred 3 weeks later in the year than in 2013 and enjoyed much better weather which led to many hotels in coastal regions of Spain reporting 100 percent occupancy of their rooms.

Saturday April 12 was the worst day of the period with seven fatal accidents which led to nine deaths, while Sunday 13 saw a further six fatalities while five more deaths occurred on Monday 14th.

These holidays saw the DGT bring into use a second helicopter equipped with Pegasus radar and a sophisticated camera in order to allow the DGT to detect speeding and other offenses committed on Spanish roads.

The first helicopter equipped with the system has been in operation for a year, flying for a total of 448 hours during which it witnessed a total of 1,441 speeding offenses.