Driving in Brasil - Part 1

I am not going to talk about my driving experience because I have not and will not, for awhile, drive in Brasil. But here are my observations about driving. I guess it is natural to contrast new things against what is familiar. The thing that is similar is that people use cars to go somewhere. The differences are:
• Most of the cars are small. But, there are also large trucks and buses sharing the road.
• The roads are narrow. What we would use as a single lane is a double, a street we would use as a double they squeeze in three. If someone has parked on the curb the traffic would go from three lanes to two lanes to three.
• Traffic signs, such as Para, (stop), are really just suggestions, especially after 7pm. It seems there are no rules after that.
• There are few patrol cars as we know them. In town, speed is controlled by large speed bumps. Large, bottom scraping speed bumps. On the highways speed is controlled by cameras that are hooked up to a radar gun. You go by too fast, it takes your picture as you drive down the road, and they mail you a ticket. Get too many tickets and you lose your license.
• Order of importance in the US is pedestrian, car, motorcycle. Here it is car, motorcycle, and then pedestrian. Here, cars are in control, well trucks, buses, then cars, then motorcycles, followed by the invisible pedestrian. There are many, many motorcycles and they just do their own thing, going between and around the cars. You don’t worry about the motorcycle, it worries about you. Pedestrians are invisible.
• Many roads here are made of rock. The rocks are small, about the size of a brick, but they are rocks, and are a little bumpy. Patches in the road are numerous and uneven. I think they are uneven or bumpy because the people who fix the roads are in a hurry because they are invisible.
I am still piecing together the theory of how to drive in Campinas. That will come later.