Drink, drive and death.

 

Last year, more than 36.000 people lost their lives in car traffic-related accidents in Brazil. The number by itself shocks, but the reason why those people died is even worse. Studies around the globe shows that even at small doses, alcohol may affect drivers’ efficiency by decreasing their perception and increasing considerably the risk of lethal accidents. For this reason, the Brazilian Government has recently published the Federal Law no. 11705/08, which does not allow drinking and driving and establishes stronger penalties, leading to cases of imprisonment. Overall, the society should be in favor of this harsh, but necessary law because it can decrease the number of car accidents, it can save lives and it can reduce the spending of public money related to car accidents.

 

 First, this law can reduce the number of car accidents, since it prohibits drinking and driving, the most relevant cause of car accidents. Once the law establishes a range of severe penalties, including imprisonment, for whoever is driving under alcohol effects, it forces drivers avoid drinking before driving, which in turn prevents many car accidents. For example, after this law has come into force, the consumption of alcohol has been reduced significantly and as a result the number of car accidents decreased around 57%. In other words, when the law coerces drivers not to drink, it creates a safely drive environment, which decreases the risks of car accidents.

 

Second, this law can save lives by not allowing drunk drivers. Frightened by the civil and criminal penalties for drunk driving, conductors will respect the message it brings: drinking and driving is considered extremely unsafe. When drives get conscious of that, many lives will be saved. It has been proven that 44% percent of persons who died presented some percentage of alcohol in their blood. Such results give the idea that in some way alcohol is closed linked to accidents. For this reason, when forcing people to consider not drinking and driving, the number of deaths will decrease. To have an idea, the number of deaths related to car accidents decreased from 277 cases a day, last year, to 156 victims per day, this year. The drop off drunk drivers is directly related to the reduction of deaths in car accidents.

 

Third, this law can prevent the Government of spending public money on medical services. According to the Brazilian Medical Association, the State expends 25 billion Reais to help out car-crash victims. After the law, the State could save up to 11 million Reais in its budget over the past three months. From the economic standpoint, the law is excellent because the Government can save up the money from the taxpayers wasted in medical service.

 

The government worked in the right path when they value life as being more important and relevant in comparison to a small group of people who insists on drinking beverages before driving, arguing that their acts are not dangerous. The right to drink remains, but not when it is related to driving because the results are much clear: more than 36.000 people died last year from car accidents. Understanding that the Federal Law n. 11705/08 is a question of saving lives and public money will make easier for anybody to give up drinking and driving.

 

 

 

 

A shot in the foot: NGO is not a solution

Many people believe that NGO is a palliative solution to social problems when facing the lack of government actions. They are wrong, instead. Although they are considered as a 4th power to handle with social, economic, environment and many other issues, the fact is that NGO is assuming the Estate paper in dealing with the problems that are not their concerns. The Estate, who receive by law money and power to organize the society is now leaving those duties to NGO, missapropriating the money that all of us pay as tax.

From law student to a car wash employee

A few years ago, when I was less than 18 years-old and soon after I entered in Law School University, I was invited to go to the United States of America by an old high school friend, whose family was moving to there.

In my friend’s family there are basically air pilots and air force workers, in which includes my friend Pablo: a young air pilot. Their move to the United States of America was related to my friend’s job opportunity as a private pilot in Florida.

By the way, I met this friend when he was living in Sao Paulo for a short period of time, almost a year to be exactly, when we have studied together in a traditional Spanish school named Miguel de Cervantes. As his family was formed by air pilots, it was very common to them to move around the globe, for example, before Sao Paulo, he lived in France and China, eventhough his birth place was Rio de Janeiro. 

When we have finished high school, we lost contact. Maybe for the opposite way we decided to take in. He got his air pilot license and I entered in the Law School University. For my surprise, however, he found out my phone number and has invited me to spent two months with him in Florida. 

At that time, I was already a law intern in a huge and important Brazilian firm of law, which has also an associated office in New York, for what speaking English was so fundamental to my career and, of course, visiting him in Florida would fit exactly into my plans of studying abroad. 

Because of that, what seemed to be a job opportunity to my best friend was, at the same time, a unique chance for me to study English. This chance was even best considering that I would have a place to stay during my vacation. 

I didn’t think twice. He invited me almost in October, and I would have only few weeks to get a tourism visa, to buy the ticket and find some money to spent in my vacation, which was in November. It was almost impossible to save money from the law trainee salary. On the other hand, I couldn’t loose this unbelievable opportunity. 

I asked my boss for vacation, bought a one way ticket flight to Miami and changed my last payment into dollars – a little bit more than 100 dollars. I was extremely excited with this trip: first time traveling alone, visiting my best friend and studying English, regardless of the risk of not having enough money to buy the flight ticket back or even to pay the daily costs.

I arrived in Miami and my friend picked me up on the airport. We went to their house in Fort Lauderdale, one of the richest city of Miami, known as the “Venice of America”, due to its expansive and intricate canal (an artificial channel for waters), in which people from the upscale society left their boats and expensive jet skis.

My friend’s house was enormous and completely white, built in the American way: an old-fashioned architecture, no walls around the residence, in a calm neighborhood, with a pleasant garden, and it was good enough to feel the American way of life. I was felling like I was personally moving to that country for a new life and smelling the air of something really different from my reality in Sao Paulo.

This American experience has enriched even more when I enrolled at an American University to take an English course. The school was in a wide campus and the students were from many different countries.               

In order to help with the ordinary costs during my stay, I decided to work, even though I didn’t had neither the correct visa to work (only for tourism) nor the social security number needed for that. For this reason, the only job I could find was in a Brazilian car wash, in Pompano Beach.

One morning I wake up and realized I passed from a law student who studies in a famous Brazilian law university and works at a big firm of law, to a simple English student, washing cars at a small Brazilian car wash. The funny situation was that I got better paid for that.

The experience of living as a Latin foreigner in USA was unforgettable, except for the fact that I haven’t learned English as I desired. After all, working with mostly Latin workers in a car wash and staying in Miami, the “Spanish City”, gave me all chances to learn Spanish language, instead of English indeed. Furthermore, the life lesson showed me the value of my job and gave me reasons to recognize the importance of any kind of work.