The time needed to complete the process of obtaining the first National Driver's License dropped 30% between January and August this year, compared to the same period last year. According to data from the Ministry of Transportation, the deadline went from 210 to 147 days, a reduction of 63 days. It is the shortest deadline recorded in the series since 2009 and, according to the government, the set of results is the best since the institution of the Brazilian Traffic Code, in 1997.
The drop occurred while the demand for the first license tripled. In the first eight months of this year, 7.3 million requests were registered to open the process, against 2.3 million in the same period last year, a growth of 216%. The number of first licenses issued, however, advanced at a slower pace: there were 2,003,112 this year, against 1,710,473 last year, an increase of 17.1%.
