Pat, you are thinking that things in Brazil are like they are in the USA.  Believe me, they aren´t.  In the USA every day you see traffic violators pulled over by the police.  Here I may see that happen once in six months.  I don´t ever recall seeing a field sobriety test administered.  About a year ago a car crossed a double-line to pass me illegally on the left.  As he was passing me, suddenly a police car appeared out of dip in the road ahead of us.  (That explains the double line.)  The driver had to hit his brakes and swing in behind me to avoid hitting the cops head-on.  Do you think the cops pursued and stopped him for endangering my life and theirs?  Heck, they didn´t even slow down.  In a much less exciting similar incident in Los Angeles, the police were on the other driver like white on rice.  Here in the Porto Alegre area while the police were investigating the murder of an off-duty cop (shot dead during an alleged robbery of the family´s churrascaria), they realized (1) he had been murdered by fellow officers, and (2) he and his buddies had formed a street gang within the police force.  Cute, huh?