Driving infractions - Brazilians can just ignore the penalties?

Well each year when you pay taxes on your car it has to be paid by the owner or transferred to the responsible person (volunteer) for driving infractions. In regards to suspensions I don’t know how they enforce that. Anyone can use Waze to get around the roadblocks where they would check for this and overdue taxes.

If the majority pays it’s a good revenue for the politicians and social programs...it sure doesn’t go to repair the roads.

They cancel your license pretty quickly, also your CPF could become blacklisted.
If they want to make it really hard on you they will make it impossible for you to apply for a passport or other essential documents until your name is clear.

Thank you Craig. One of the cars involved in the case I'm referring to was registered in GO but the person moved to Rio with it and got many infractions in a short time period. In the DETRAN records the infractions were marked "Bloqueio veiculo no DETRAN" which I thought meant the title coudn't be transferred until the fines were paid, but the title was transferred to a family member in Goias who paid the fines owed to DETRAN GO - the ones owed to DETRAN RJ were not paid. He registered another car in RJ last July and has 21 points on it including drunk driving (mandatory suspension) and he hasn't complied or paid anything so it will be interesting to see what happens when the registration is due.

Thank you Steve. This is a person who never worked, just a con artist, so he doesn't care about those things. The only penalties he would be worried about are jail time and the car being seized.

What a mess, I hope it gets resolved without issues for you. Yeah when I bought my car from a dealership they said the title was clear. Then I went on and about my business the next few months until a roadblock, which is no big deal I was licensed and definitely not drinking.

My Portuguese was terrible and all I got was pay this much or we take the car. I was like what, what is going on...thought it was a shake down. Then I got the story from a cop who could fully explain that I owed the yearly taxes (had no idea it was based on a month not year from purchase), a small amount of infractions (turn right on red a no no) and late fees.

I never got a bill in the mail so I was shocked. I paid the amount and went on my way...a large amount in my books. Then I looked at the infractions I paid because I want to avoid this in the future. One was from 1 year prior (before I bought the car), but I had to pay full amount that day or lose car.

In your case go on detran website and make the 3 payment method when it’s time to pay. Then go to detran and contest the 3rd payment (the one infractions are added to) if it is another persons fines.

I wish you luck!