Driving Licenses

Yesterday, Steve and I went to get our Brazilian Driver’s licenses. It was a surreal affair and had to be seen to be believed.

It started, not as one might expect at a driving test center as in the UK, or at the equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles as in the United States. Instead, we went to a dingy fourth floor doctor’s office. In my time of traveling around to different countries I always wonder why these places have to be quite so awful. The worst by far was the doctor’s office in New Jersey where we had to have medicals done to obtain our green cards. That was so disgusting that one didn’t want to even sit on the chairs. Time and time again, we encounter grim offices that serve as the place to go to obtain one form of documentation or another - ugh.

But back to the Driving Test. Well at least we went in person. Telling the story after the event, a friend told us that she had a Brazilian license that just “came in the post”. She hadn’t attended anything. Obviously, we hadn’t paid enough money.

We had been told that the process would take between a half hour and an hour. We took with us a lawyer from the same law firm that had helped us with our original visas. Remembering the time in March when we waited 8 hours to get our fingerprints taken, my expectations as to the amount of time this was going to take was not high to say the least.

But actually, it was reasonably efficient. We went in together, sat next to each other in what appeared to be an examination room and awaited instructions.

I had been told that taking a driving test in Brazil involves no actual driving or knowledge of any road based rules. Rather it involves taking lots of brain tests. Quite what the correlation is between brain teasers and driving I have no idea, but our limited amount of Portuguese was no handicap.

The first test consisted of a picture or series of pictures that needed to be completed. So for instance, the first one was a picture of a horse without a tail. There were then 6 further pictures each bearing a letter with the idea that you pick the picture that completed the horse. One could have picked an ear, a second head, a leg, a tail, a hoof or a muzzle. Funnily enough, we both picked the tail.

And so this is how the driving test worked. Forty brain teasers each getting progressively harder. I made it to 36, Steve to 39. Only afterwards did we discover that we only needed to hit 50%.

The second test was a sheet full of arrows pointing left, right, up and down. Some were filled in, some blank and some with dots. The idea was to shade in pencil over the arrows pointing right that were filled in, arrows pointing left that were left unfilled and arrows pointing down with a dot in them. After five minutes of that, you were really left with spots before the eyes.

The last of these tests comprised of 6 simple geometric shapes that had to be copied in boxes alongside the originals. There was a circle with a line through, a rectangle with a diagonal line, a star, a square with the corner missing, some funny shape comprising all of the above and a sixth that I have forgotten - it was obviously not that memorable.

So we passed that bit. Now I thought, on to the medical. We were after all at the doctors.

The “medical” comprised having our blood pressure taken and answering a series of questions, such as “do you smoke?”, “drink excessively?”, “take illegal drugs?” – the sort of thing that you would be mad to answer “yes” to.

Finally there was the eye exam. Now I wear contact lenses so I had no problem. Steve on the other hand wears glasses and without them really can’t see that well. Funny thing – needing glasses to see, but he had to remove his glasses for the test so not surprisingly didn’t do very well. No problem said the doctor; just remember to wear your glasses when you drive!

So 30 minutes, R$ 118 each later I think we have passed. The licenses will come in the post in about a week. Once we have them, Marcelo will be able to break the speed limit, jump red traffic lights and break the embargo that operates whereby our car cannot go into the center of the city at certain times on Thursday. All because now that we have our licenses, we can be the “designated” drivers for collecting penalty points.

I have no intention of driving here, not least because all the other road users have been through the same test that we did and it doesn’t inspire me with much confidence as to actual driving ability.

I’ll leave the driving to Marcelo and happily take his points, not that I think I will ever need to.

Elections

Last Sunday we had elections here in Brazil. It has to be said, it was a complicated affair.

Marcelo was trying to explain to me the intricacies of the system, which, with my limited Portuguese was not the easiest of tasks, but I think I got the gist of it. I came away believing that one needed a degree in Brazilian politics to understand it fully, but here, I hope, is a brief synopsis.

This was a general election, comprising votes for the President, Upper House and Lower House of Federal Government. There were races for the State Governors, plus the State Legislature and the Federal District. Marcelo was also trying to explain that he also voted for “Prefects” but I have no idea where they fit into the mix.

Running for President were Dilma (known by her first name and running for Lula’s party), Serra, (known by his surname running for the main opposition) and Marina (the Green party candidate).

Dilma was widely expected to win the required 50% of the vote needed for an outright win, but in the end fell short with 46.9% of the vote. This will now trigger a runoff election in a month’s time between her and Serra who won 32.6%. Marina drops out.

Quite why, with the Brazilians’ love of technology they simply didn’t have a “second preference” vote beats me and that would have eliminated the need for the runoff. So a re-do in 4 weeks.

The Upper House has a total of 81 Federal Senators, comprising 3 for each of the 26 States plus 3 for the Federal District of Brasilia, the capital. Of these, 54 were up for election and win by a simple majority.

The Lower House has 513 Deputies, all of whom were up for election, and are elected by proportional representation.

Add into the mix the State Governors, State Legislatures and the mysterious “prefects” makes for a very complicated ballot paper.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. As well as being identified by name and party, each candidate has a number. So for example, Serra was number 45, but then again so was the candidate of Serra’s party who was running for Governor of Sao Paulo. Maybe this is the number given to all candidates running for Governor in each State if they belong to Serra’s party. The Senator from the same party was number 451. The State Deputy was 45545 but then the Federal Deputy for Serra’s party was number 2588 – go figure.

I couldn’t understand why on earth there would be numbers as well as names but then someone said something to me that made me think, “of course”. In Brazil it is compulsory for everyone to vote but there are swathes of the country where illiteracy is rife. I guess people have cottoned onto the fact that numbers are easier to identify than names might be.

We don’t have Brazilian TV so haven’t been bombarded with endless political commercials, but what we have seen is masses of posters, banners, flags and bill boards advertising the names and numbers of the various candidates. I did wonder what it would be like after the election with all the detritus of the campaign, but as we were driving home late Sunday evening, I was struck by how quickly everything had been cleared away, and (for Sao Paulo) the streets were relatively clean. Civic pride after all.

But as with most developing countries we have experienced, there is a lot to learn about the democratic process. I was talking to a lady only today, and she had asked her maid who she had voted for. The reply came, “Dilma for President, Alckmin for State Governor.” When asked why she hadn’t voted for any of the other positions, the reply was, “My priest wrote the names of the people to vote for and he left the names of the other positions blank so I didn’t vote for anyone else.”

I guess as least she participated in the democratic process. I love the idea that you can tick the box for “None of the above”.