usually have perfectly normal acceleration and deceleration lanes, very safe turns and transitable shoulders. Thus, the practical difference between a "new" autovía and a generic autopista is mainly the frequency of exits, which is usually higher in an autovía - upgraded from an old road with many crosses - than in a new, purpose-designed autopista with fewer preconditions imposed on it. Safety It is considered that the construction of motorways has helped to increase safety in Spanish roads, while generating a traffic increase. Fatalities on motorways have decreased from 776 in 2006 to 277 in 2015. Spain is one of the countries of the EU with most of road fatalities occurring on motorways rather than other roads: 16% in 2015. But the same year, taking into account the fact that Spain counts a longer distance of road as motorways, Spain is one of the countries with the less motorway fatality rates per 1.000 km of motorways, after Finland, Denmark, Croatia, and Hungary: 18.1 fatalities per 1000 kilometers of motorways. Effective speed Source: https://www.mitma.gob.es/recursos_mfom/comodin/recursos/vel_autovia_mes.pdf State-managed motorways Most of the high capacity roads in Spain are under the authority of the General Roads Directorate () of the Ministry of Public Works, a department of the central Government of Spain, with the exceptions of Navarre and the Basque Country, the only autonomous communities which have been transferred full powers over all roads in their territories. Usually, the DGC manages all road maintenance, but in the case of the tolled autopistas, the management is commonly delegated to the concessionaire company. Traditionally, purpose-built autopistas or autovías were assigned names starting with A plus one or two numbers describing their general orientation, while upgraded autovías kept their original names. Thus, the freeway that is currently known as A-5 was still reported as N-V in road signs for years after the upgrade was completed, making it difficult for drivers to know in advance which roads had become autovías. However, in 2003 all Spanish motorways were uniformly renamed with the following criteria: Interurban free-to-use motorways are named "A-" plus: one number, if it is one of the major axes of Spain, being A-1 to A-6 the six radial highways stemming from Madrid, A-7 the highway through the Mediterranean coast, and A-8 the highway through the Cantabrian (northern) coast. Number 9 is reserved for the highway through the Atlantic coast of Galicia, but it is a toll road, so