Road sign P-24: Free-roaming animals crossing

What it means

«Peligro por la proximidad de un lugar donde frecuentemente la vía puede ser atravesada por animales en libertad.» RD 465/2025, Annex I of the RGC (BOE-A-2025-12199), Spanish original.

The sign warns of the proximity of a place where the road may often be crossed by free-roaming animals. It is a warning: it creates no priority of its own and prohibits nothing.

Where you meet it

You meet it before the stretch where loose animals are often seen. Article 46.c provides, in almost the same terms as for pedestrians, that you moderate your speed when there are animals on the part of the road you are using or their sudden entry can reasonably be foreseen.

What you must do

Moderate your speed. As a general rule you have priority over animals (RGC art. 66.1), but that does not release you from the duty to moderate when animals are on the road or their sudden entry can be foreseen.

Details that count

When turning into another road with animals crossing it, you must give way to them even if there is no marked crossing for them (RGC art. 66.1.b). Beware the word «droving route»: P-24 does not signal one. The properly signed droving route is where priority is reversed in favour of the livestock, and that is something else (RGC art. 66.1.a). It is a triangle, code P: it flags a risk that is hard to see in time and does not regulate (RGC arts. 144 to 146). The two animal signs read alike: they warn of a place where crossings are frequent, and the kind of animal is what changes.

What it is confused with

It is confused with P-23, «Livestock crossing». P-24 announces free-roaming animals, P-23 livestock or domestic animals: what changes is the kind of animal you expect.

Related signs

• P-23: Livestock crossing
• P-26: Falling rocks
• P-20b: Pedestrians

Studied in topic 3: Pedestrians and cyclists.

Source: RGC arts. 66.1.a, 66.1.b, 144 to 146; RGC Annex I, sign P-24 (RD 465/2025).