Safety – Frank Discussion
RV’s are safe in Mexico again in 2022. But there are still safety worries. I don’t blame you for wondering if it is safe to drive your RV to Mexico.
Just remember, there are so many incidents of road rage, often involving weapons, in the USA that they don’t even make the news anymore. And you want to tell me it’s safe to drive in the USA? Yes, overall, it is. The same is true in Mexico.
No self-respecting thief wants your RV. Cartels have been ordered to leave tourists alone – unless they wander about into dope fields. But, there are areas where it’s best not to go – or to depend on the self-respect factor. I will tell you what’s happening.
There will always be new stories of some shooting death in Mexico, just like similar stories in the USA. Technically cartels are not the criminals in the USA, but often drugs have something to do with the shootings. So does hatred, intolerance, and just plain meanness. Before pointing fingers at Mexico, we should look at the four pointing back to us.
There will always be stories about Foreigners (especially missionaries) who live in a town and get robbed and shot. Without taking away any of the seriousness and awful tragedy the survivors endured, I should point out that they lived in the community and were not tourists like you. That is a big difference.
So, when you read the news, please try to get the whole story, not just the sensational generalizations.
Save on shipping (free in many cases). Movies are blocked from a Mexican IP address, but you can still watch if you have a VPN.
A Few Simple Driving Safety Tips
The toll roads make driving Mexico easy for RVs, and the gas and diesel stations are easy on, easy off. You can safely boondock at 24-hour stations if you ask. Many RV’ers do that, though I still encourage you to frequent RV parks to keep them in business.
Don’t drive at night, please. The roads are mostly good (depending on where you are) compared to a few decades ago, but there are still animals and humans up to no good once the sun goes down. Not all vehicles have tail lights or brake lights. And there are a lot of drunks on the road. This is true in the USA, too, of course. There are parts of Mexico that are best avoided. They are generally specific hotspots, not whole states, as the State Department writes. I keep up with what’s happening and keep you away from dangerous areas.
How many RVs were broken into, stolen, or otherwise bothered in the USA then? I guarantee you it was more than 3. Let’s say that I only hear of half the things. Let’s say there were six incidents. I still say you are safe in Mexico.
Why do we think we are so immune from reality when we travel? Stuff happens everywhere. Don’t condemn an entire country or cancel a trip because of some isolated incidents or rumors.
There is a bulletin board for RV’ers that I like. The discussions are lively, and often the contributors know what they are talking about. But, just like any board, some negative Nellies spread disinformation. After reading my breathless prose, take a gander at this RV forum.
RV Hotline Canada said this: The RCMP in BC has created a new section to combat an epidemic of RV, campers, boat, snowmobile, and all-terrain vehicle thefts.
Uh, are you afraid to drive your RV to Canada? I doubt it.
There are something like 300 shootings a month in the good old USA. The Australian government issued an advisory warning their citizens to think twice about coming to the USA when an Australian university student was shot dead in a small town in Oklahoma. That was a couple of years ago. Darned if something similar didn’t happen again in 2017. An Australian woman called 911 and was shot by a policeman in Minneapolis. Bad stuff happens everywhere. There was a similar incident in 2020. In 2019, a Dallas resident was shot and killed by an off-duty policewoman who mistook his apartment for hers. In Mexico, the headline would have read, “Police officers kill citizens.”
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