Speed or not

Driving here is easier than driving in China. But one of those driving surprise and distinctive difference here is the "fiscalisaçao". This is a speed control cars are subjected to when driving around the District Federal and more intensely around Brasilia. At every street corner and at about every 500 m there is a surveillance camera recording the cars' speed. Fortunately, the cameras are not really hidden. Large signs announce the coming fiscalisaçao, and their location is often joined with a large portal with a LED sign indicating your actual speed - and de facto telling you if you are going to get a fine. 

In practice, on the road, it also means that cars speed between the cameras and suddenly puts the brakes on and drive very slow for about 200 m after which they will resume speeding again. When arriving here, I saw them as hazardous drivers. Later, I caught myself behaving in a similar fashion. Yesterday, on a local expat's forum, I found a newcomer's question regarding the meaning of this strange driving behavior and laugh; the writer did not know about the hidden cameras. 

In the end, a driver following the flow of traffic will naturally come to follow the cadence imposed by the cameras, and slow at the needed points. A little extra caution is needed to match the required speed, sometimes very low. Indeed, the problem is that the speed limits are often extremely low (some places up to 40 km/h) following areas where the limit is 80.  And there is little mercy, with only a couple of extra km/h of margin before getting fined. 

Indeed, the cameras can catch a car "speeding" at 72 km/h on a 70 km/h zone, and  a generous fine of 85 Reais ($US 43) will follow. It is one of the most effective things here in Brasilia, to my knowledge. The first day I took the car, I also got fined for driving and talking with my cell phone. My first driving month was a baptism by fire, I collected for over 700 reais of fines. Let me tell you I quickly learned to identify these thorny camera spots. A useful tool to know when to slow down is Waze, this iphone crowd-source app where you can know about traffic jams, cameras and other important things. (If I mention this here it is because normal GPS do not really work here in Brasilia, when you input an address you end up somewhere else than expected). 

Once a car plate caught on camera, a note is sent to the mail to advise the driver. It is then possible to "debate" its validity. You might ask what is there to argue, specially when there is a picture of your car with a specific time and date attached to it? But you might not be the driver, maybe someone else. It is useless to take the first note to the bank, it is merely a piece of information, I later learned. A few months later an official note is sent by mail, confirming the actual fine. I learned, after standing in line for one another hour that even if this paper is the final bill, you can't use it to pay, neither at your bank or at the emitting bank. The clerk, who clearly understood I was clueless, took time to explain to me the process, and the impression of a special notice from the internet. I needed to go home, find the internet page, print, take cash with me and return another time during office hours. After standing in line in three separate occasions, for a total of 3 hours (give or take), I had not yet succeeded to pay my fines. 
I have been calling these my banking woes. They are the little thorns in my Brazilian life here. But I assume with time they will get less and less numerous and painful. 
Learning what to do with all these things - which bank, which paper, when, are all part of this "learning curve" an expat has to take to integrate in his new country. It takes time. And patience. 
Rachel here wrote a nice post about similar expat issues.