How to appeal an unjustified fleet fine in Brazil

In Brazil, an unjustified fine occurs when you did not commit an infraction but received a citation against your CNPJ (corporate taxpayer ID), if the vehicle belongs to the company.

If the fine is unjustified, there are not many ways to prevent it from happening, but there are alternatives for filing an appeal to transfer or cancel the notification.

Explore below:

• What is an unjustified fleet fine?
• What causes an unjustified fine?
• How do you appeal an unjustified fine?
• What are the alternatives for avoiding fleet fines?

What is an unjustified fleet fine?

It is a fine received for an infraction that was not committed during fleet activities.

It may be entirely unjustified, when the fleet's vehicles and drivers did not actually cause the infraction. But it may also be partially unjustified, when a fleet vehicle is used for a driver's personal reasons.

Different measures are taken in each case: in the first, cancellation of the fine is requested. In the second, transfer or conversion into a warning. Learn more about these distinctions for appealing traffic fines in Brazil below.

What causes an unjustified fine?

The most common causes are a driver using the vehicle for personal reasons, errors when completing the violation notice or, less likely, license plate cloning.

When it is caused by errors in entering infraction information, this means the data in the violation notice is incorrect. This document brings together the infraction location and vehicle characteristics and is susceptible to errors.

For example, if a plate is recorded with a different digit or letter, someone else may be identified as responsible for the infraction and receive the unjustified fine.

If a crime is committed and your vehicle's plate has been cloned, there is a possibility of receiving this type of fine.

This situation is a little more complicated to handle, but very important. In Brazil, you should file a police report and have inspections carried out by DETRAN (the state traffic department) to confirm your vehicle is the original and did not commit infractions.

How do you appeal an unjustified fine?

In Brazil, the process for appealing traffic fines has three stages: preliminary defense, first-level appeal and second-level appeal.

See how each works below:

1 – Preliminary defense

In Brazil, after receiving the notification, you can submit a preliminary defense through the DETRAN website. As mentioned earlier, there are different possibilities:

• Conversion into a warning: in Brazil, instead of a minor or medium fine, the company receives only an infraction warning. This defense is only possible if there have been no other incidents within a period of one year.
• Transfer of the fine: in Brazil, if a company vehicle was used for personal purposes on the date of the infraction, it is possible to appeal and request transfer of the fine to the driver's name.
• Cancellation of the fine: in Brazil, this happens when incorrect data has been entered in the violation notice.

If this is rejected, you move on to a first-level appeal:

2 – First-level appeal

In this case, in Brazil, you are no longer dealing with DETRAN but applying to JARI — Juntas Administrativas de Recursos de Infrações (Administrative Infraction Appeal Boards).

The appeal needs help from the company's legal department or a specialist in the field to be written. It should explain the problem and defense in detail, also attaching any documents and files that prove your arguments.

In Brazil, this is an online process and is usually addressed within 60 days, because after that limit the company is exempt from paying the fine.

If it is also rejected, the next alternative is to write a second-level appeal.

3 – Second-level appeal

Here, in Brazil, the authority involved is CETRAN, Conselho Estadual de Trânsito (State Traffic Council). As with the previous appeal, it should be well written, detailed and have evidence attached to increase the chances of approval.

What are the alternatives for avoiding fleet fines?

Fleet monitoring

With monitoring, you identify whether the vehicle that received the notification actually committed that infraction. The monitoring system needs to be integrated with fleet management to provide access to historical data

Searching for and finding data on the route traveled and driving speed, for example, helps provide evidence when you are filing a first- or second-level appeal.

Driver management

Driver management generally focuses on identifying their working hours and setting fleet savings goals. After all, they are in direct contact with vehicles and fuel consumption and play an important role in identifying damage.

When it comes to fines, it is also useful to identify how many fines each driver receives, the severity of each, the amounts spent, whether fines have decreased or increased over the driver's time working, and so on.

It is therefore important for driver management and traffic fine management (in Portuguese) to be directly related.

Training and safety policies

When you identify fleet problems and risks to road safety (in Portuguese), you should take preventive measures. This means providing driver training and defining new safety policies.

You can also describe the new policies during a dedicated training session. They can also be included in an update to your company's fleet policy.
See more tips on managing your fleet in our free guide on the subject (in Portuguese).