When I was in Brazil, I found it refreshing to see how free Brazil is from much of the 'safety consciousness' that you find in the U.S.There is more to his comment, but this is what I want to focus on. First off, I would like to say that I am not criticizing his thoughts by anything I say in this post. Instead I want to expand on them from my perspective.
I thought much the same way for several weeks after first arriving. One of the things I saw, though, that changed my view a bit was a photograph of a power company employee on the front page of the local newspaper. He was in his hard-hat, had a safety harness on. It was a pretty normal photograph, except that he was suspended by the safety harness above a metal ladder. He had been electrocuted to death.
Impressed that this image was even printed, let alone front and center on the front page of the paper, I began to think about the things I had seen since arriving in Teresina.
I do not remember the entire story behind this image—my Portuguese was not as good then—but it seems that he was working on the power lines, and they came on while he was working. At any rate, the image is burned into my mind.
Road construction is probably the most interesting contrast with the US I have seen. If you are ever driving in Teresina, and see a tree sticking out of the middle of the road that was not there yesterday, it probably means that there is a sizable hole at the location of the tree. No reflective markers, no flashing lights. Nope. Just a tree, and a mound of dirt.
Sometimes there is no warning at all. The other night I was driving my father-in-law's taxi (but not as a taxi operator), and only missed a three-foot wide by two-foot deep hole only because I had seen them working on it earlier in the day.
There are sometimes a couple of saw-horse type metal markers. They are painted yellow, but not reflective.
I have told some stories about the bus drivers here, too. For every one I have told, there are a couple more that have turned my knuckles white.
Maybe its my "over-active" imagination, but something else that really has come to make me sick (and I see it almost every day) is a man on his motorcycle with his wife—usually wearing helmets, but not always. In-between, behind—however they fit—kids. I have seen up to five or six people on a motorcycle in traffic. This kind of irresponsibility makes me angry.
Motorcycles are also commonly used to carry doors, bicycles, computers (motorist with a CPU case resting on the gas-tank comes to mind). Oh, and my favorite: The motorcycle with three propane tanks hitched to a metal bracket on the back—I recommend not hitting him.What I am really saying here is that, yeah, the freedoms are sometimes... freeing. But sometimes I would really rather see a few more rules, or more enforcement of the ones that already exist.
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