Brazil's new drunken driving law stirs discontent

By Raymond Colitt

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Police have arrested hundreds of Brazilian drivers under a tough new law designed to crack down on rampant drunken driving, but bar owners are working to overturn the measure and many of their clients are flouting it.

Brazil has some of the world's most dangerous roads, with 7 deaths per 10,000 cars each year, compared to one or two deaths in most European countries, according to the Brazilian Association of Traffic Medicine.

An estimated 45 percent of those 36,000 annual deaths are due to drinking, the group says.

The law, which took effect on June 20, effectively bars drivers from drinking and imposes stiff fines. One beer is enough to exceed the new limit of 0.2 decigrams of alcohol per liter of blood. The old limit was 0.6 decigrams.

Violators face at least a $600 fine, a one-year suspension of driving privileges and temporary impoundment of their cars. Heavy drinkers can be imprisoned.

In 10 days federal police, who monitors the country's main highways, have arrested some 300 motorists and fined many more even though experts say they are undertrained, underfunded and underequipped. Some states only have a handful of breathalyzers.

Still, the law is prompting widespread discontent in a country where the rules of the road are often scorned.

"I'm for restrictions but they've gone too far. Where I live there's no public transport, so I can forget that romantic dinner, right?" said student Adelberto Santos at a Brasilia bar on Saturday.