Chihuahua's SecretarÃa de Comunicaciones y Obras Públicas, which has responsibility for roads signed as Chihuahua state highways and also for certain capital improvements on Mexican federal highways in Chihuahua, has improved its website radically in the last few years. This page deals with recent improvements to state (and, I think, federal) highways:
http://www.chihuahua.gob.mx/scop/Contenido/plantilla5.asp?cve_canal=2271&Portal=scop
The roads receiving major makeovers include the back way from San Juanito to Basaseachic, which I remember as being hard to find and impassably rough when I attempted it in December of 2002. The major attraction in Basaseachic is a waterfall, said to be (IIRC) the second or third highest in North America, which falls into a small, steep-sided valley. The back road is what you have to take if you want an easy way to see the full height of the waterfall. If you approach Basaseachic from La Junta via the direct route (Mex. 16), you come out at the top of the waterfall and get a less-than-dramatic view of water running over the cliff edge just under your feet.
There are plenty of places in Mexico that I would have no problem visiting (QR, Mexico City, BC/BCS, etc.). Chihuahua isn't one of them. Aren't they #1 right now for drug crime? It's a shame. I'd love to get to go see that waterfall.
Quote from: realjd on June 13, 2011, 01:11:53 PM
There are plenty of places in Mexico that I would have no problem visiting (QR, Mexico City, BC/BCS, etc.). Chihuahua isn't one of them. Aren't they #1 right now for drug crime? It's a shame. I'd love to get to go see that waterfall.
Chihuahua is a big state. The reason for the high crime rate is due to the presence of Ciudad Juarez in that state. I'd have no worries about crime heading out to the rural areas of Chihuahua - my only concern would be to get a damn good map! I looked on Google Maps and the route to the front of the waterfall seems to be quite the challenge to find.
Perhaps in the field it is signed well*, but when I type in Basaseachic I get a point seemingly in the middle of nowhere, with a "location approximate" qualifier!
if I were to do a Chihuahua run, I'd probably cross into Mexico at Nogales, try to get away from that city, and MX-15 as quickly as possible, by taking MX-2. Then I'd take either MX-10 or even backtrack on MX-17 to get to MX-16. I'd have to figure out the exact paperwork I'd need, as clearly Chihuahua is not covered under the "only Sonora" car importation policy, but apparently the Sonora/Chihuahua border on MX-16 does not allow you to get the correct Chihuahua vehicle permit, as it is completely out in the sticks and little more than two guys and an army jeep.
Well, what do you know! Mexico now has some Google StreetView coverage. Here is the turnoff for Basaseachic:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Basaseachi,+Chihuahua&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Basaseachi,+Chihuahua,+Mexico&ll=28.209947,-108.208247&spn=0.019249,0.038581&z=15&layer=c&cbll=28.209947,-108.208247&panoid=TcIZ-hapPgUk2YFdVzNEAQ&cbp=12,288.83,,0,4.91
(I think I have eaten in the restaurant off to the left--quite good breakfast omelette, with refried beans on the side, but I don't think they had hot chocolate, which is a Mexican winter treat.)
Chihuahua is, in fact, the largest Mexican state and is signed as El estado más grande de la república mexicana on a cast-concrete welcome sign a few km east of where Mex. 16 crosses the Sonora state line.
http://www.cbrd.co.uk/international/mexico/sierra.shtml
Quote from: J N Winkler on June 13, 2011, 02:26:34 PM
Well, what do you know! Mexico now has some Google StreetView coverage. Here is the turnoff for Basaseachic:
well I'll be damned. I tried dragging the little man onto 16 in that area and got bounced. Maybe I just wasn't zoomed in enough?
I recognize that the interior of Mexico is mostly safe, but Chihuahua is the exception. It's one of the only areas where Americans are specifically targeted, particularly for carjacking. Even the toll roads aren't safe. FWIW, it's the only Mexican state with a blanket travel ban for US military personnel. The other military bans are specific to border towns, not entire states. My understanding is that the state government has essentially collapsed. Rather than the normal police checkpoints, the cartels are openly running checkpoints along highways.
I tend to take US travel warnings and such with a grain and salt. I'd have no problem spending the day in TJ, and I'd love to make the drive down to Los Cabos along the length of thee Baja peninsula. But Chihuahua (and neighboring Durango) is a completely different story.
Quote from: realjd on June 13, 2011, 07:41:56 PM
I recognize that the interior of Mexico is mostly safe, but Chihuahua is the exception. It's one of the only areas where Americans are specifically targeted, particularly for carjacking. Even the toll roads aren't safe. FWIW, it's the only Mexican state with a blanket travel ban for US military personnel. The other military bans are specific to border towns, not entire states. My understanding is that the state government has essentially collapsed. Rather than the normal police checkpoints, the cartels are openly running checkpoints along highways.
I tend to take US travel warnings and such with a grain and salt. I'd have no problem spending the day in TJ, and I'd love to make the drive down to Los Cabos along the length of thee Baja peninsula. But Chihuahua (and neighboring Durango) is a completely different story.
I know that this is an off-topic thread drift, but I certainly hope that we won't have to see the USArmy take major action in Mexico again like they had to a century ago. Things are not going well there and I do have a very real fear of a total collapse in much (if not all) of the country and a resulting flood-tide of millions of refugees heading north.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on June 14, 2011, 01:11:44 PM
I know that this is an off-topic thread drift, but I certainly hope that we won't have to see the USArmy take major action in Mexico again like they had to a century ago. Things are not going well there and I do have a very real fear of a total collapse in much (if not all) of the country and a resulting flood-tide of millions of refugees heading north.
Mike
they won't do it. more oil in Libya.
Quote from: realjd on June 13, 2011, 07:41:56 PMI recognize that the interior of Mexico is mostly safe, but Chihuahua is the exception. It's one of the only areas where Americans are specifically targeted, particularly for carjacking. Even the toll roads aren't safe. FWIW, it's the only Mexican state with a blanket travel ban for US military personnel. The other military bans are specific to border towns, not entire states. My understanding is that the state government has essentially collapsed. Rather than the normal police checkpoints, the cartels are openly running checkpoints along highways.
I'm not sure I would go so far as to say "collapsed" across all sectors (SCOP's website is much more expansive than it was just a few years ago, for example), but it is certainly clear that law enforcement at all levels in Chihuahua--federal, state, local--cannot cope and has not been able to do so for a number of years now, and the violence is certainly not confined to Juárez anymore.
A couple of years ago there was a cartel shootout in Creel which was caught on video and uploaded to YouTube; Creel is a major tourist destination because it is the entrepôt to Copper Canyon from the east and a stop on the Chihuahua al Pacífico excursion train which leaves from the coast and follows the old KCM&O RR line across Copper Canyon en route to Chihuahua city. (Creel gets its name from Enrique Creel, a governor of Chihuahua and one of Porfirio Diaz'
científico advisors, who was one of the Mexican investors in the KCM&O RR.)
I also remember reading a year or two ago that the residents of Nuevos Casas Grandes, which is near the Paquimé ruins which are another important tourist attraction in Chihuahua, had gotten so tired of being pushed around by the cartels that they armed themselves illegally and organized themselves into a vigilante group. Some cartel soldiers came through and the residents stiff-armed the police until it was time to collect the bodies. The
narcotraficantes had essentially been tortured to death.
Meanwhile, further north and east near the Texas border, the police chief in one of the border towns is apparently a woman under the age of 20, all her recent (male, older, more experienced) predecessors having been killed. It's been some months since I read this news--I don't know if she is even still alive.
Last I heard she was still alive... and hiding in the US.
Why don't they just get some automatic rifles and just get rid of the cartels? They have to know who the members are by now. I doubt even the meanest cartels could stand up to soldiers/police/citizens armed with automatic rifles shooting to kill. I can't think of any other solution except ending the war on drugs.
Quote from: deanej on June 14, 2011, 07:22:28 PM
Last I heard she was still alive... and hiding in the US.
Why don't they just get some automatic rifles and just get rid of the cartels? They have to know who the members are by now. I doubt even the meanest cartels could stand up to soldiers/police/citizens armed with automatic rifles shooting to kill. I can't think of any other solution except ending the war on drugs.
Mexican citizens don't enjoy the easy access to firearms that Americans do (although full auto guns are a PITA to get even here). They would most likely have to buy them from the cartels themselves who wouldn't be keen on selling weapons to citizens willing to overthrow them.
Of course the US supplying arms to rebels worked so well in places like Afghanistan. Maybe we should have the CIA start arming villagers.
Why would anyone in their right mind go to Mexico these days? Would a smart person have decided their tourism for 1968 should include Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia? The cartel wars have amassed over 30,000 dead in the last few years and that's more of a Vietnam War-type number so it's obvious it's a real war going on down there. Iraq and Afghanistan by comparison are mildly contested occupations but I wouldn't put Baghdad or Kabul on my travel list either.
Rick
Quote from: nexus73 on June 14, 2011, 11:51:55 PM
The cartel wars have amassed over 30,000 dead in the last few years and that's more of a Vietnam War-type number so it's obvious it's a real war going on down there.
that's not an accurate comparison.
1) US deaths were around 30,000 - the total combatant dead in Vietnam is about 250,000 south and 900,000 north. Approximately. And 2 million civilians. Approximately. But you see what I'm leading at.
2) Mexico is a much larger surface area than the part of southeast Asia which was at war.
so, to compare Mexico to Vietnam doesn't make much sense.
^^^
Agreed. Saying that you're not going to say Cancun because of what's happening in Chihuahua would be like saying I'm not going to Bahrain because their's trouble in Iraq.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on June 15, 2011, 12:03:29 AMQuote from: nexus73 on June 14, 2011, 11:51:55 PMThe cartel wars have amassed over 30,000 dead in the last few years and that's more of a Vietnam War-type number so it's obvious it's a real war going on down there.
that's not an accurate comparison.
1) US deaths were around 30,000 - the total combatant dead in Vietnam is about 250,000 south and 900,000 north. Approximately. And 2 million civilians. Approximately. But you see what I'm leading at.
2) Mexico is a much larger surface area than the part of southeast Asia which was at war.
Vietnam also had a population of about 35 million when the Vietnam War was at its height in the 1960's, so those losses occurred out of a smaller population base than modern Mexico (population currently around 112 million). The current drug war is not even the worst thing Mexico has undergone in the recent past. At the time of the Mexican Revolution, which began with the anti-re-election campaign of 1910 and did not start to wind down until the adoption of the 1917 Constitution, Mexico had a population of around 20 million, about 10% of which died in the instability.
A better comparison would be with Chicago during the gangster era, but on a much larger scale. In Chicago there was no general breakdown of municipal government, but there was widespread corruption and the police were unable to cope with organized crime. It took federal intervention and the abolition of Prohibition (which eliminated a major revenue source for the gangs) to correct the situation.
P.S. Vietnam aside, I don't think Cambodia and Laos in 1968 would have been any more odd as a tourist destination than Syria or Egypt in 2010. Wasn't it actually Nixon who started the "dirty war" in those countries as part of his attempt to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail?
Cambodia had the Khmer Rouge and Laos had the Pathet Lao, both of which were fighting guerilla wars against the regimes in the respective capital cities of Phnom Penh and Vientiane. The Ho Chi Minh Trail and various sanctuaries/supply points were also found in those countries. These nations were definitely war zones in 1968.
The latest casualty count from Mexico shows 38,000 dead over the last 5 years. When I refer to Vietnam War-type numbers, I am talking about the total US death toll, which was a bit over 58,000 over nearly 20 years.
Just being argumentitive over trivial points and missing the fact that Mexico is VERY DANGEROUS these days shows some of you posters missed the point I was making. Oh well!
Rick
Quote from: nexus73 on June 15, 2011, 12:18:44 PM
The latest casualty count from Mexico shows 38,000 dead over the last 5 years. When I refer to Vietnam War-type numbers, I am talking about the total US death toll, which was a bit over 58,000 over nearly 20 years.
and what is the total US death toll in Mexico over the last few years? the one source I can find says 850. Seems plausible to me.
but, if we're not going to compare apples to apples, why don't we talk about WWII? over 20 million Soviets dead; does that mean Americans should stop going to the USSR? Shit, better cancel my flight to Leningrad.
in fact, the Earth in general, throughout its history as a host to humanity, has seen over 100 billion people die. I should probably launch myself into space, just to be safe.
QuoteJust being argumentitive over trivial points and missing the fact that Mexico is VERY DANGEROUS these days shows some of you posters missed the point I was making.
it is horribly dangerous. why, out of those 850 dead, at least 3500 of them were me on my last trip. I couldn't even take a minute to pee without getting killed six or seven times. Gosh! it got pretty irritating after a while.
(//www.aaroads.com/shields/blog/photos/092979.jpg)
typical scene of carnage and bloodshed in Mexico. You may see my garishly mutilated remains in every pixel of this photo, including up in the air, because that is how thorough they were in killing me.
To illustrate the absurdity of foreign travel warnings, let's play a game. I'll post a travel advisory from a country's foreign travel department, you try to guess the location in question.
What super scary location is this?:
Violent crime remains a serious concern in [location]. Criminals have demonstrated that they will use violence with little or no provocation. Many attacks have occurred in the [city] area, and others have taken place on rural roads and at [highway network] rest areas. Some rest areas have dusk-to-dawn security on site (which is indicated on the highway sign). Proceed cautiously when exiting a freeway (including [freeway]) into large urban centres, especially after dusk. Theft has increased, particularly from trunks of parked cars in the [tourist city] area, [tourist area] and at airports. Be alert, as criminals use a variety of techniques to steal personal belongings.
I actually guessed correctly, so I'm redacting my post so that others may guess.
hint: it's a place whose drivers I constantly bitch and moan about, but I never actually fear for my life.
The country in question is clearly one with which most of us are familiar to a considerable degree. I thought the warning itself might be British, but British officialdom has a very distinctive diction which is absent from this. The answer is here (scroll to bottom):
http://readingeagle.com/mobile/article.aspx?id=306541
Extracts from the actual British advice pertaining to the relevant country:
"A new immigration law in [state] which came into effect on [effective date] is currently subject to Federal injunction to remove some sections of the law. The law makes it a misdemeanour crime for any foreign national to be in [state] without carrying proof of legal immigration status. We advise that if you are planning a trip to [state], either on business or on holiday, you should carry your passport as a means of identity with you at all times.
". . . Medical treatment can be very expensive; there are no special arrangements for British visitors. The British Embassy and Consulates-General cannot assist you with medical expenses. You should ensure that you have comprehensive medical insurance, which includes hospital treatment and medical evacuation to the UK.
". . . There is a general threat from terrorism in the [country]. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers."
Quote from: J N Winkler on June 15, 2011, 03:48:49 PM
The country in question is clearly one with which most of us are familiar to a considerable degree. I thought the warning itself might be British, but British officialdom has a very distinctive diction which is absent from this. The answer is here (scroll to bottom):
http://readingeagle.com/mobile/article.aspx?id=306541
the country issuing the warning is Canada.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on June 15, 2011, 04:01:55 PM
Quote from: J N Winkler on June 15, 2011, 03:48:49 PM
The country in question is clearly one with which most of us are familiar to a considerable degree. I thought the warning itself might be British, but British officialdom has a very distinctive diction which is absent from this. The answer is here (scroll to bottom):
http://readingeagle.com/mobile/article.aspx?id=306541
the country issuing the warning is Canada.
I believe the British warning also indicated (or did at one point) that you are absolutely 100% sure to get cholera and dengue fever from traveling to this location.
Quote from: realjd on June 15, 2011, 04:42:36 PM
I believe the British warning also indicated (or did at one point) that you are absolutely 100% sure to get cholera and dengue fever from traveling to this location.
that's if you survive the flying cows with ray guns which roam the wilderness in great packs, destroying all in their way.
Quote from: realjd on June 15, 2011, 02:07:37 PM
To illustrate the absurdity of foreign travel warnings, let's play a game. I'll post a travel advisory from a country's foreign travel department, you try to guess the location in question.
What super scary location is this?:
Violent crime remains a serious concern in [location]. Criminals have demonstrated that they will use violence with little or no provocation. Many attacks have occurred in the [city] area, and others have taken place on rural roads and at [highway network] rest areas. Some rest areas have dusk-to-dawn security on site (which is indicated on the highway sign). Proceed cautiously when exiting a freeway (including [freeway]) into large urban centres, especially after dusk. Theft has increased, particularly from trunks of parked cars in the [tourist city] area, [tourist area] and at airports. Be alert, as criminals use a variety of techniques to steal personal belongings.
Sounds like Miami and Florida.
^^^
It is.
Quote
I live in that country. That country is the United States. That area spotlighted as a particularly crime-ridden area is Florida and, specifically Miami.
It was Canada issuing the warning.
QuoteAnd, the country that issued those warnings and advisories to its citizens? That would be our neighbor to the north, Canada.
And what is really sad is that ALL of the subject matter of this thread drift is directly related to the Drug War™.
:banghead:
Mike
Great job! And to think I've managed to avoid being randomly killed by roving patrols of criminals on both urban and rural highways!
The point was that travel warnings are often overblown. When I went to London in April, the US State Department had a terrorism warning for the UK. I saw huge labour party protests and mild anarchist rioting, but no terrorism.
From today's news and you can count on more news like this coming soon:
.Mexico's northern state of Nuevo Leon, home to the industrial city of Monterrey, saw 33 killings Wednesday, in the most violent day in recent history, officials said Thursday.
The prosperous region, home to many foreign companies, was until recently considered a safe haven as drug violence increased in parts of Mexico.
But a bloody turf war between the Gulf cartel and its former hitmen the Zetas has spilled into the state in less than two years, producing daylight shootouts, grenade attacks and a climate of fear.
A spokesman for Nuevo Leon government, who requested anonymity, said 33 violent killings were recorded in and around state capital Monterrey, an area of some four million, on Wednesday.
Before then, the highest number recorded were 18, on May 20, including 14 in a deliberate fire in a jail in Apodaca town.
Many of Wednesday's killings bore the signs of drug gang vendettas, including the discovery of the mutilated corpses of two bodyguards of State Governor Rodrigo Medina, along with a message allegedly from the Gulf gang.
Parts of Mexico, particularly near the US border, have seen a rise in suspected drug violence, with more than 37,000 deaths blamed on drug gangs since the launch of a military crackdown on organized crime at the end of 2006.
Rick
Off-topic, along with the rest of y'all:
The U.S. citizen death toll in 2010 (the most violent year) was 111. The number of U.S. visitors to México that year was about 7 million, and the number of U.S. residents in México that year was about 1 million. You do the math. I did. If I'm to assume that the average resident stays in México an average of ten months, and the average visitor stays 12 hours (both of these numbers are completely made up, of course), then the average length of stay altogether is about 0.73 years. 111 deaths, therefore, adjusted for lenght of stay, comes to a homicide rate of 1.9 per 100,000 population. This is lower than both the Mexican population at large and all but nine U.S. states (2009 figures). Chihuahua is the #1 state for drug-related homicides, most notably because of Cd Juárez, but also for Chihuahua City et al. I haven't looked at the municipal-level monthly figures for the state myself, but I have a copy of them (12/2006 through 12/2010) on my computer at home. Typically the numbers show most of a given state being peaceful with contrastingly high rates in drug trafficking cities; I suspect that towns like Creel and the others mentioned to show a spike for one month and then drop back down to normal. We read the news report, and assume the violence continues on afterwards indefinitely, when in reality it's usually contained fairly well (well-known cities excluded, of course). For comparison, 80% of all drug-related murders in the state of Coahuila in 2010 occurred in the municipal district of Torreón; all other districts had lower rates than the homicide rate of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I could go on, but I might bore you with more statistics. All that is to say that people usually have a mistaken view of the safety situation in México
ANYWAY. Back on topic:
I have had limited exposure to Chihuahua's state highway system. I was in the state over New Year's 2001/2002, and traversed the state from Juárez to Batopilas by bus (via Chihuahua City and Creel). I remember the state highway from Creel to the Batopilas junction being in very good condition, with near-new blacktop and bright stripes. The road the rest of the way to Batopilas is a state road, and is famous for being challenging — gravel switchbacks almost nonstop down into the canyon. Considering the topography, it too was very well maintained. Looking at Google Maps and its satellite and street views, it also appears they've done some extensive toll-road construction west of Cuauhtémoc since I was there, so it doesn't surprise they're also improving access to the falls. I note also the existence of state 2-lane toll roads between Chihuahua City and Nuevo Casa Grandes. If only they could figure out a stoplight-free bypass around the capital city!
Quote from: kphoger on November 22, 2011, 08:09:41 PM
The U.S. citizen death toll in 2010 (the most violent year) was 111. The number of U.S. visitors to México that year was about 7 million, and the number of U.S. residents in México that year was about 1 million. You do the math. I did. If I'm to assume that the average resident stays in México an average of ten months, and the average visitor stays 12 hours (both of these numbers are completely made up, of course), then the average length of stay altogether is about 0.73 years. 111 deaths, therefore, adjusted for lenght of stay, comes to a homicide rate of 1.9 per 100,000 population.
this math is not correct. 1 million residents staying 10 months each is 10 million man-months. 7 million visitors staying 12 hours each is 0.12 million man-months. a total of 10.12 million man-months divided by 8 million visitors is 1.265 months average stay, which is about 0.1 years, not 0.73
the homicide rate therefore is about 13.87 per 100,000 population, which is much higher than the US rate of 5... but is still significantly less than that of New Orleans, which is 50.
and, in general, your overall point stands. stay out of the trouble zones, don't be an idiot, and enjoy your visit!
OK, my head is swimming with math right now. I'm redoing the math myself and coming up with a different answer than I did originally. I'll just accept it for now that you're right. :D
Using your assumptions (10 months/year per US resident in Mexico, 12 hours/year per US visitor to Mexico), we have (10/12 * 1,000,000) + (1/730 * 7,000,000) = 833,333 + 9,589 = 842922 person-years of exposure distributed among a population of 8 million. This means that the homicide rate has to be multiplied by (8,000,000/842,922) = 9.49 to obtain an estimate that is comparable to American homicide rates, which generally assume one person-year of exposure per person. So the adjusted homicide rate is (9.49*111)/8,000,000 = 0.00013167375 = 13.1 deaths per 100,000.
Compared to the homicide rate (murder + nonnegligent homicide) for major US cities, this actually isn't too bad--it is roughly comparable to Memphis, for example, and about a third of the rate for New Orleans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
It is, however, three times the murder rate for Wichita. It is also slightly higher than the overall rate for Mexico in 2009: 9,600 homicides for a population of 100,000,000, or about 9.6 homicides per 100,000. (For 2010 I have found data on drug-related homicides only--corresponding to 15.3 deaths per 100,000.)
The possibility of being killed is only one aspect of the ongoing concern about violence in Mexico, however. There have been reports of the drug cartels running roadblocks on the highways; of kidnappings for ransom; and of mass graves, many of which are thought to have been filled with people dragged off intercity motorcoaches and then executed. On foot in an urban setting I don't generally worry too much because I figure I can blend in without too much trouble, but as a roadtripper I find it particularly unsettling not to be able to count on the freedom of the road.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Zapata_%28U.S._agent%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tamaulipas_massacre
The mass graves also have an effect on the crime statistics since the people in them typically can't be counted as homicides until their remains are found. Several mass graves in Durango have yielded 308 bodies, while another was found in Nuevo Leon with 70 bodies, a third in Coahuila with 38, and a fourth in Tamaulipas with 193 (or 500 if you believe reports which the Tamaulipas state government is said to have suppressed). Mexico has a population of about 100 million, so it takes just 1,000 people found in mass graves to move the homicide rate one point when it is expressed as deaths per hundred thousand.
I appreciate that the violence tends to be localized but even when the obvious suspects like Juárez are left out, it is hard to know which cities and highway corridors to avoid.
Edit: Jake posted to make the same point about the need to adjust for exposure as I was composing this post. I second his point about avoiding known trouble-spots (the border is a good starting point), but at this point Baja looks like the only reliably trouble-free part of Mexico. It used to be that you just had to avoid Sinaloa (Mex. 15 corridor), but traditionally reliable places like Chihuahua (outside Juárez), Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas are no longer so.
All right, I finally got the math straightened out and....what do you know....came up with the same answer as you did.
The biggest hole in the data, as you pointed out, is the lack of representation of missing persons which cannot legally be counted as fatalities. However, it is reasonable to assume that these gaps in the data would be fairly uniform geographically and, if they are not uniform, would be more sizeable in those areas already shown to be violent. Therefore the comparison of place to place remains valid.
As far as total homicide rate goes, I haven't found that figure either; however, one Harvard study cited that 45% of the murders since Decmeber of 2006 were drug-related; since the drug crime rate has increased substantially, I find it safe to assume that more than half are now drug-related; this, then, means that in areas not prone to drug violence, the remaining homicide rates are very low.
There have been reports of people being snatched off the road by the cartels. These are few and far between, most occur at night, most are motorists travelling alone on deserted highways, etc. Right back to common sense. I actually find myself being passed by much more expensive cars than my own on Mexican highways, so I don't find blending in to be too much of a problem.
And, as far as avoiding minor cities or not avoiding them, I could investigate these on a case-by-case basis for you if you'd like. I have a spreadsheet that breaks down the deaths by month and by municipal district. Pretty easy to do a cross-section.
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 22, 2011, 09:29:05 PM
Edit: Jake posted to make the same point about the need to adjust for exposure as I was composing this post. I second his point about avoiding known trouble-spots (the border is a good starting point), but at this point Baja looks like the only reliably trouble-free part of Mexico. It used to be that you just had to avoid Sinaloa (Mex. 15 corridor), but traditionally reliable places like Chihuahua (outside Juárez), Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas are no longer so.
There are safe areas other than Baja. The Yucutan is still pretty much trouble free for tourists (especially Cozumel), and Mexico City is supposed to be a great place to visit. Just avoid the drug trade and you should be OK.
Of the 111 American citizens killed, I doubt very many (if any) were tourists.
Quote from: realjd on November 23, 2011, 07:58:07 AM
Of the 111 American citizens killed, I doubt very many (if any) were tourists.
In fact, most of the victims were themselves involved in illicit operations, such as drug or human trafficking. A third of them were in Juárez and Tijuana alone.
Here is the municipal-level (read: county-level) breakdown for the state of Chihuahua. Note how far and away Juárez leads the state, and how much of the state is relatively violence-free.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1092.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fi410%2Fkphoger%2Fchih_states.png&hash=b502b0349f01681470f91d8a683f03990d67422a)
Out of interest, what is your source for the crime data? I presume it can be combined with population data (INEGI?) to derive per-capita values.
The Mexican federal government released its data back in January of this year. I was able to download the Excel file directly from their website. I believe it's a conglomeration of multiple government sources. There had been a call for the government to release the data for a few years, but they were very slow-moving, not because they didn't want to but because they wanted to make sure it was accurate. Too liberal, and they'd be called fear-mongering; too conservative, and they'd be accused to sweeping it under the rug.
And, yes, I've done the per-capita thing for other regions. The problem is that the per-capita rate can be very misleading in rural areas. Have one shootout in a years' time, and the per-capita rate goes through the roof, whereas in a more urban district the number doesn't fluctuate as much. That's where month-by-month evaluation is useful.