Brasil Avenue leads ranking of collisions with victims in Rio de Janeiro

RIO DE JANERIRO, BRAZIL – 58.5 kilometers long, Brasil Avenue is the city’s most important expressway. But in addition to its enormous dimensions, it also stands out for its high number of collisions.

Last year, it led the unfortunate ranking of accidents with victims in Rio: 408 occurrences – an average of 7.8 cases per week, or 1 per day – more than twice as many as the second highest, Américas Avenue, with 157.

In addition to the fact that Brasil Av. sees thousands of cars per day, drivers also cite pavement issues as factors that contribute to the rate.

As well as ranking 1st in number of accidents, Brasil Avenue ranks 9th in among streets in which fines were issued by electronic devices in 2020 – which detect speeding and traffic lights violations.

When the city hall detected a drop in revenue from the collection of fines – the R$116 (US$21.8) million collected in 2020 was 63% lower than in 2018 and 46% lower than in 2019 – it decided to launch a Results Agreement program, which intends to grant salary bonuses to civil servants should the city’s goal of collecting R$291.9 million in fines in 2021 be reached.

Under the Results Agreement, the city hall will offer a 1.2 salary bonus to employees of CET-Rio and the Municipal Transportation Secretariat should the city exceed the collection target by 65.28%, through electronic traffic fines (speed cameras and speed humps), compared to the estimate in the 2021 budget.

The goal is to raise a record collection of R$291.9 million, against the estimated R$176.6 million. However, in the first 4 months of the year, collection was 73% lower than in the same period in 2018. Last week, city councilors presented a Draft Legislative Decree against the measure.