Safe moves on Brazilian highways.

• Author: Holston, Mark
• Position: Ojo!

NOT LONG AGO, the daily commute on Brazil's highways and city boulevards was a nerve-testing adventure undertaken with great trepidation by all but the most aggressive drivers. Speeding, lane-jumping taxis, wildly careening buses, and tailgating, horn-blowing Ayrton Senna wannabes made any venture onto a Brazilian thoroughfare a veritable white-knuckle experience.

Today, thanks to the increasing use of electronic surveillance, stiff fines, and the dramatically increased presence of law enforcers, driving in many regions of South America's most populous nation has become boringly efficient and exceedingly courteous. Traffic deaths and collision rates are trending downward as a result, and, although rush-hour traffic in many cities still moves at a snail's pace, today it increasingly inches along with well-mannered precision.

The extensive use by some Brazilian states and municipalities of electronic monitoring and automatic ticketing for speeding violations is one of the reasons. Vehicle owners now set dashboard alarms to alert them when they've begun to exceed the posted speed limit. With fines that can run in excess of US$100, motorists live in dread of receiving a mailed notice that they've been caught by the Fiscalizacao Eletronica, which verifies the speed infraction and snaps photos of violators' cars and license plates as a basis for issuing speeding tickets. Failure to pay or recurring infractions can result in the revocation of driving privileges.

In Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, and other large cities, lanes designated for buses keep commuter traffic on the move during the peak of rush hour, helping to relieve the traffic crunch. In the largest city of the Americas, however, municipal officials have had to take extra-tough measures to bring even a bit of order to what had been...