Terror and Intrigue-Taxis in Brasil

Errrrrrrrcccchhhhhkkk! “Oh my God!!!!” I hear and think at the same time, fingernails digging into my forearm and holding me down to my seat, visions of mom and grandma’s arms smacking me backwards as we brakeswerveslideaccelerate around the other car.  I can almost touch the metallic blue paint through the window and see the other driver’s totally unstartled face as clear as day.  We have all had (hopefully only a few) of the above described near-miss accidents as a driver or passenger, where for some reason everything is suddenly stopped in front of us and we barely swerve in time to narrowly avoid a possibly horrific collision.

However, this is a typical scene and a regular occurrence throughout any given cab ride in Brazil.  I am grateful and simply stunned that we weren’t in more than one fender bender. Public transportation was not great in general and we were usually told that taxis were generally the best, “safest” option over buses and limited metros.  The best quote over the entire World Cup I saw on Twitter was (I wish I could find original tweet) along the lines of: “After this trip, the top ten most harrowing cab rides of my life will have all been in Brazil.”  I am in total agreement, despite some crazy cab rides in London, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Berlin, New York, Chicago.  Making any ride worse in Brazil is that motorcycles and scooters (not to mention pedestrian peddlers) can use the in between space and weave in and out of traffic as they please and you are often looking directly at one right next to you as it squeezes between two cars that are almost touching.  While there was a huge police presence everywhere, especially Rio, they were not there to enforce any type of traffic safety-police motorcycles were some of the most dangerous with or without sirens going.

In Salvador, it cost generally 65 or 70 reais to go across town in what all seemed to be “hurried” taxi trips and had us, and many other travelers we talked to, on the edge of our seats, often with eyes closed.  I usually just tried to focus at the city “scenery” as we drove by, not how fast it was flashing and jerking by.  However, there was one dude who got us from the far side of town back to our hotel for only about 50 reais (that’s at a minimum 15% less than any of the other cab rides).  I am not sure if this was better or worse; although it was still indeed terrorizing and harrowing, the 50 reais driver knew exactly where he was going and we somehow felt reasonably assured in his “control”, coming after many other less competent cabbies and even scarier rides before him, including the minor fender bender.

Recife really wasn’t that bad taxi-wise, as far as I can remember, and our trips were generally much shorter, usually only to the mall area.  Fortunately, although the city hadn’t completed the metro or bus lines that were supposed to go all the way out to the new stadium, they had implemented had a fabulous, truly efficient bus system to take game attendees to and from the stadium from a large shopping center and mall. So, we didn’t have to rely on cabs nearly as much in the eight days in this city.  However, I can only suppose that if I didn’t have Salvador and Rio to compare it to, the cab rides here would have been able to make the top ten.

Rio de Janiero is a crazy city, with crazy winding criss-crossing roads, either very wide with an indeterminable number of lanes, or very narrow and somewhat determinable ~two or three usually~ lanes. Not to mention the fact that many cab drivers have no idea where they are going and think that you are so stupid and Portuguese-limited that you can’t understand them calling someone to ask “onde fica” (“where is”)? Or sometimes one will just stop every few blocks and to ask another cabby or a local before blasting off in the pointed direction.  While Brazilians and Caricoas (locals from Rio) are generally relaxed, laid back and not concerned with speed at all, the taxi drivers were always on a mission to arrive as quickly as possible.  It was always a relief to arrive safely at any destination.  When we ate at a cool trendy restaurant in the Santa Teresa neighborhood the host told us it was difficult to call taxis all the way up so they instead provided a slightly more expensive private service, we were psyched for a set price, no rush drive through the city in a really nice luxury sedan.