"Mexico Safer than Headlines Indicate"
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WSOPFAN
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Seriously, no a minute ago it wasn't.......it was crime and OR deaths being reported just about weekly.
The point is 5-10 years ago there were ZERO executions in Cozumel now there are some.
Drugs and drug related crimes are very much on the increase in Cozumel.
The EPIC FAIL is you putting words in my mouth. The moped response was to Dave's statement of only 2 Americans dying in Cozumel in the last 20 years outside of diving. I was telling him he was wrong and why and in no way did I say Mexico was unsafe because of mopeds.
I think it comes down to telling people the truth and not pretending like or intentionally hiding the fact that a certain location is 100% safe. Posting that map and saying look the crime is in these places in Mexico so Cozumel is perfectly safe is NOT telling people the truth. There are drug related crimes on Cozumel and it has been on the rise for years but with it's location and the importance of tourism, I doubt it will get to the point of other locations and be overrun with the drug cartels.
Like I said before, travelers to Mexico or anywhere else, need to use due diligence before making plans.
deeper thoughts
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This is simple. Is South Florida safe? It matters where. NW Miami Dade is a 24hr war zone and a world away from Islamorada. To compare the two makes for good conversation but that is all.
Comparing Coz to Juarez would be the same as the above but with one caveat, you need a boat to get to Coz.
Comparing Coz to Juarez would be the same as the above but with one caveat, you need a boat to get to Coz.
halocline
Contributor
I suppose "safe" is a somewhat subjective concept. How do you determine whether the U.S. or Mexico is safer? Violent crime incidence per capita? Safer for whom? An American in either country....and if so, do you only include Americans traveling within the U.S. and exclude time spent in your own home? That's probably a fairer comparison. How about comparing a Mexican traveling in the U.S. vs an American traveling in Mexico? Who is more likely to be the victim of a violent crime?
The only danger I've felt (and I realize that 'felt' is completely subjective) in Mexico is driving...not for any violence, but for accidents. Driving around D.F. is a white knuckle, sphincter clinching experience that I really did not enjoy. I've lived in NY and Boston, and driving in those cities is not even close. But outside of urban driving, I certainly feel safer walking around and traveling in Mexican cities and towns than in U.S. urban areas. But, I'm one of those knee jerk liberals who thinks that we're actually safer when fewer people are carrying weapons. And there is no doubt that Mexicans carry weapons (well, guns anyhow) at a far lower rate than Americans.
I did a bit of searching for crime statistics, and found wildly differing numbers for Mexican crime rates vs those in the U.S. depending on the apparent slant of the website. One interesting indication is that the border cities of Juarez and Tijuana seem to account for more than half of Americans murdered in Mexico, and those statistics would include Mexican-Americans visiting relatives; i.e. presumably not traveling in a typical 'tourist' location. There is zero doubt that in border cities where so much of the drug related activities occur, there is a very high incidence of violent crime and that those places are very dangerous for both Mexicans and Americans.
Getting back to the point of this thread, which was to remind readers of this forum that traveling to Cozumel is likely to be safer than one might think given the coverage of the drug-related violence, I suspect that statistically, Americans are at least as safe in Cozumel as they would be traveling to the FL keys, South Padre Island, the N.C. coast, or any other U.S. dive destination.
The only danger I've felt (and I realize that 'felt' is completely subjective) in Mexico is driving...not for any violence, but for accidents. Driving around D.F. is a white knuckle, sphincter clinching experience that I really did not enjoy. I've lived in NY and Boston, and driving in those cities is not even close. But outside of urban driving, I certainly feel safer walking around and traveling in Mexican cities and towns than in U.S. urban areas. But, I'm one of those knee jerk liberals who thinks that we're actually safer when fewer people are carrying weapons. And there is no doubt that Mexicans carry weapons (well, guns anyhow) at a far lower rate than Americans.
I did a bit of searching for crime statistics, and found wildly differing numbers for Mexican crime rates vs those in the U.S. depending on the apparent slant of the website. One interesting indication is that the border cities of Juarez and Tijuana seem to account for more than half of Americans murdered in Mexico, and those statistics would include Mexican-Americans visiting relatives; i.e. presumably not traveling in a typical 'tourist' location. There is zero doubt that in border cities where so much of the drug related activities occur, there is a very high incidence of violent crime and that those places are very dangerous for both Mexicans and Americans.
Getting back to the point of this thread, which was to remind readers of this forum that traveling to Cozumel is likely to be safer than one might think given the coverage of the drug-related violence, I suspect that statistically, Americans are at least as safe in Cozumel as they would be traveling to the FL keys, South Padre Island, the N.C. coast, or any other U.S. dive destination.
annlaur
Contributor
As I posted a few posts above, reported crimes and actual crimes are not the same thing.
I am not saying you are wrong, because I don't have any figures regarding the actual drug-related crimes (traffic + murder) committed in Cozumel over the past 20 years.
I do know however that, in nearby locales, prior to Calderon's "war on drugs" (started in dec. 2006), there was lots of traffic but it was much less publicized than it is nowadays. Less police busts (which makes sense, considering officials at many levels in different forces and administrations were more or less closely involved), therefore less reports in the news (although Por Esto did build its fame in the late 90s when it published a series of stories about the cocaine route in Southern Quintana Roo that implicated Banamex president Roberto Hernandez Ramirez) and, it seems, a concern by the traffickers to do their dirty business in a manner that would not attract police or media attention (accident, suicide, disappearance). I am not saying the latter happened on Cozumel, haven't heard any story about disguised murders of dealers there, but I did in other places nearby, so it's a possibility (I have however heard stories of drug traffic in Cozumel before 2000).
What I am saying is, just because we read every week or so in the local paper that a dealer has been arrested on the island with x grams of drugs, it doesn't mean that there are more dealings taking place than 15 years ago. To be able to say that, we would first need to :
1. Read all the newspaper issues from the past 15 years to compare the numbers of reported drug activity.
2. More importantly, be somehow able to figure out what the real drug-related activity has been all those years (which by definition is impossible, I doubt all criminals keep log-books).
The one thing I can say, which is not supported by any statistics, is that I've spent in total 4 months in Cozumel over the past two years, walking (or riding a scooter) at every time of day and night, in different neighborhoods, and I've not only felt safe, I've felt welcome.
I only use basic common sense and act the way I do here in Paris (except I smile more on the island) : I don't do drugs (except coffee, nicotine, and the occasional margarita), wouldn't go inside a shady bar filled with guys or talk to total drunks, don't walk around wearing expensive jewelry (don't own any anyways, so that's easy), am respectful of the people I meet, be them tourists, neighbors, waiters, or policias, exercize basic caution but don't suspect everyone I come into contact with to want to rob or harm me (unlike some people I've seen, who then don't understand why they weren't treated with "the respect they deserved" Yelling or demanding will get you nowhere in Mexico. If you can't smile and be genuine, you may wait even longer for that drink)
I have no doubt that, while I was having fun, somewhere else on the island someone was selling or doing drugs, just as I have no doubt that this is also happening somewhere near where I live while I am typing this. Maybe I'll read about it in the newspaper tomorrow if they get busted. But the drug-dealers world and mine are parallel, chances for them to come together are slim.
Of course one day, should things worsen and should I be at the wrong place at the wrong time, I could be caught in a crossfire between rival gangs, whether here or there (yes, there are gangs in Paris too). Or my plane could crash on the way to Mexico. Or I could fall off my scooter. Or Point is, I'm not gonna stop living for fear of dying.
You really ought to visit the island and see for yourself, instead of just relying on what you read in the news (plus I think you owe cvchief a drink).
Well, a big percentage increase of a very small number can still be a very small number. For example, when I hear that something doubles my chances of getting cancer, I ask what it was before. If it changes my chances from 1/100,000 to 2/100,000 I really don't worry about it all that much. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that Cozumel is statistically more hazardous than it was was 10-15 years ago. Everywhere is. Absolute safety does not exist.
Just for curiosity's sake, how much time have you spent on Cozumel? My opinion of its relative safety is formed from many visits there over more than 30 years. For the record, I have no commercial interests in any businesses on Cozumel and I have nothing to gain or lose as a result of more or fewer people visiting the island.
OK, so then we are saying no place is safe. I can deal with that way of looking at anything but it is a cheap way of winning your point. Mexico isn't safe because no place is safe! Now that we agree no place is safe, where are the less unsafe spots? Oh, wait, I know one: Cozumel! Where you just feel CUT OFF from the problems of the rest of the world.
I think you should use due diligence before traveling to the grocery store let alone foreign lands. I replace tires when the tread gets low, check the air. Wash the lights when I do the windows and I pack a heater. Still I think my grocery store and the roads leading there are not very unsafe, though I know there have been more crimes and deaths on those roads than in times past.
Arguing safe is BS, as the word is subjective. In fact, many areas in the world try to manage how safe people feel separately from making them safer. People feel safe or unsafe somewhat independently from a statistical likelihood of being a victim.
If you want to deal with the reality of the situation, get a number of tourists traveling to the island and then give me some numbers on how many are victims of whatever and we can compare it to other areas for relativity. Simply generalizing about newspaper stories is anecdotal at best.
