Let's talk about safety in Mexico.
I'm an American who has been living
in Mexico for over five years.
So I'm going to start out this video telling you
about my personal experience with safety across the country.
And then I'm going to go into some stats, and finally,
I'm going to talk about safety in a way that I
can almost guarantee you that you've never heard before.
However, I think this is a very
best way to look at safety when
considering one country versus another country.
In my five plus years here in this country, I've never
had someone try to commit a serious crime against me.
Like, I've never been the victim of an attempted
kidnapping or extortion or carjacking or anything like that.
I've never been the victim of a
home invasion or even petty theft.
However, I've met hundreds of other foreigners who are living
here in Mexico over the years, and some of them
have been the victim of a home invasion, and one
of them was the victim of an attempted carjacking.
Although I've never been the victim of a robbery
or a serious crime, I have dealt with my
fair share of dishonest people, like someone trying to
screw me over or someone who isn't willing to
fulfill their part of the contract.
Things like that have happened pretty frequently.
A question I get a lot is, have
you had run ins with the cartel?
And no, although I'm sure I've met
some cartel members, I didn't know unless
they were trying to sell me drugs.
If they were trying to sell me drugs, then,
yeah, they were probably a cartel member, because if
you're trying to sell drugs and you're not part
of a cartel, I imagine you're not going to
have a very long life expectancy.
But other than that, I've never
had any cartel encounter whatsoever.
Another thing I consider very important for my
personal safety is do I have access to
quality, affordable healthcare and affordable emergency care?
And in my experience, my emergency care and
my health care has been very good.
And when I was living in the US.
Whenever there was something wrong with me, I was afraid
to go to the doctor because I knew that if
I went to the hospital, I'd be receiving a bill
of at least $1,000 just for walking through the doors.
And that's even, like, with having insurance, right?
So that, a lot of times, kept me from going to
the doctor or made it, so I had to be, like,
in really bad shape before I would even consider going.
However, here, if I need to go to the doctor, maybe
I have a bill of $100 or a couple hundred dollars
If I have to go to the emergency room,
maybe if it's something serious, you're approaching $500.
So comparing the quality of health care here to the US.
I think it's pretty similar because I'm
using the private healthcare system here.
There's also a public healthcare system here that
anybody can access for free, but you have to
pay for the private healthcare system and generally going
to a private doctor, a private hospital, you're going
to get a higher level quality of care.
However, you have to pay for that,
and you generally have to pay upfront.
Before moving to Mexico, I was living in the US
My whole life. And I had lived in the US
For 29 years without ever being the victim of
a robbery or attempted robbery or something like that.
However, on my 30th year there, I was somebody tried
to rob me in Phoenix, Arizona, and that actually happened
just a few months before leaving to Mexico.
And I went to Barcelona for a week one time,
and in that one week, I was the victim of
an attempted robbery two times. Twice in one week.
So in the US
Once in 30 years, Barcelona, twice in one week.
In Mexico, zero times in almost six years.
And then overall, how do I feel
about safety in my everyday life?
Do I feel safe driving.
Do I feel safe walking around?
Do I feel safe out at night?
And in general, I think that I feel pretty safe.
However, with that said, we live in one of the safest
cities in the country, and also I try to take reasonable
precautions that I would take in any big city.
So with taking reasonable precautions, yes, I
feel safe in most places around Mexico.
But with that said, when talking about safety, I don't
really like this "did I feel safe?" kind of thing.
Because let's say I go to one of
the most dangerous places in the world for
a week and nothing ever happens to me.
I'm walking around day and night, I
never experience anything, and people seem nice.
And then I go back home and I'm
like, oh yeah, I felt very safe there.
When it's actually one of the most dangerous places in
the world, that kind of thing happens a lot.
However, one week is not enough time to
really experience it and really learn about things
and learn about the real dangers.
So let's talk about some actual stats now.
Let's generalize a little bit and talk about the
intentional homicide rate in the entire country of Mexico
versus the entire country of the United States.
Yes, I'm fully aware that there are some very dangerous
parts of Mexico and very dangerous parts of the US.
And there's also very safe places in both countries.
But let's just talk about the numbers as a whole.
So the United States is by no
means the safest place in the world.
Like, there's still a lot of dangers there, and
there's still a lot of murders that happen.
And in 2022, the intentional homicide rate was
about seven people per 100,000 population, whereas in
Mexico in 2022, it was four times that.
It was 28 per 100,000.
So when just looking at that one stat,
it appears that Mexico is about four times
more dangerous, but there's nuances there.
So, for example, one of those nuances is there's
a lot of cartel on cartel violence, and every
one of those counts as a murder.
However, most of those happen between cartels.
So if you just take out that one part of the
statistic, it drops that 28 number by quite a lot.
And a lot of people before coming to Mexico are
super worried about being a victim of cartel violence.
But the truth is that only a small percentage of the
country at any one time is in danger of cartel activity.
For example, there's about 5% of the country at any
one time that has heavy cartel activity like that.
So going to most tourist places, it's probably
not going to be a concern for you.
Yeah, there's going to be petty theft.
Yeah, cartels will probably have some kind
of presence there, like in the sense
of selling drugs or things like that.
However, for the average tourist going and doing
your tourist things, well, it's probably not something
you're ever going to have to worry about.
Practically every video on Mexico safety that I've
ever seen is somebody talking about how they
feel in Mexico, whether they feel safe, and
sometimes they get into some stats.
However, I don't think how I feel,
whether I feel safe is very important
when it comes to actual safety levels.
And the reason for this is it doesn't
answer a whole bunch of other questions.
Am I safe from food?
Am I safe from toxins?
Am I safe from pollution?
Am I safe while driving?
Do I have access to
affordable, quality, emergency medical care?
Things like this.
There's a lot of other things that go into safety.
And something that encompasses everything is the
average life expectancy, because it encompasses everything,
all the dangers and everything in society.
When looking at the average life expectancy around the
world, the very best predictor of how long people
will live is how wealthy that country is.
The wealthier the country, the
longer the average life expectancy.
And this doesn't just apply
to one country versus another.
It also applies within a country.
For example, the wealthiest 1% of men in the United States
are expected to live 87 years old, whereas the poorest 1%
of men are expected to live 15 years less.
So there's a drastic difference between the wealthiest
in society and the poorest in society.
And that's something that you find
in every other country as well.
Because the wealthier people are going to
have access to the best doctors.
They're probably going to be more highly educated.
They're probably going to better understand the importance of
eating healthy and exercising and have access to a
quality gym, maybe access to a trainer.
Things like that is, of course,
going to help you live longer.
And then at the same time, the poorest in
society are going to be less well educated.
Maybe they don't understand how important it is to
eat healthier, what it even means to eat healthy,
what foods are healthy and what foods are not.
They're going to have less of that knowledge.
And in addition to that, the poorer people
tend to resort to crime more often.
And if you go try to rob somebody, there's
a chance that something happens to you that maybe
you get killed in that attempted robbery.
So things like that are going
to lower the average life expectancy.
Now, let's talk about the
USA life expectancy versus Mexico.
So in the USA, you have an
average life expectancy of about 79 years.
This is in one of the wealthiest countries
in the whole world, with modern infrastructure, new
fancy hospitals, with very highly trained doctors.
Now, in the US.
I know we have a lot of bad habits.
There's a lot of people who are eating fast food,
who are eating lots of sugar, who don't exercise well.
There's big problems with obesity there.
So I'm not saying that the US. Doesn't have problems.
The US.
Has lots of problems.
Now in Mexico, there's lots of problems too.
But Mexico isn't nearly as wealthy
as a whole as the US. Is.
And like, let's say you're watching some construction workers
before they go to work in the morning.
These guys will walk into a convenience store and it's
very typical to see them walk out with a two
liter of Coke and like, some sugary treat, and that
will be their meal for the entire day.
A lot of times, that's how a lot of the less
well off people eat here, they consume a ton of sugar.
And if you go out for like, let's say,
tacos in Mexico, you'll see almost everybody in the
entire restaurant with a Coca Cola or some other
soda sitting in front of them.
People consume a ton of sugar here.
So there's lots of problems
with heart disease and diabetes.
Now, with all of that in mind, and also keep
in mind the much higher intentional murder rate, all the
cartel activity and everything, compared to 79 years, what do
you think the life expectancy is here in Mexico?
If you would have asked me that question before I
knew what I know now about Mexico, and with all
that information that I just gave you, I probably would
have guessed the average life expectancy in Mexico would be
something like 62 years, maybe 65 years, something like that.
But the reality is it's 75 years old.
So it's just a few years less
than the life expectancy in the USA.
But when thinking about that 75 year life
expectancy, don't forget that most people here have
to use the public health care system.
Now, if you have an average salary in the US.
And you come to Mexico, you're going to be in
the top 1% of earners here in Mexico, which allows
you to easily afford the private health care.
And remember that stat I gave you
that wealthiest 1% in the US.
Versus the poorest 1%?
There's a 15 year difference in life expectancy.
Well, although I don't have the exact stats from
Mexico, I would guess that it's something similar.
Because if you are wealthier, you have
access to the very best health care.
You can eat healthier.
You don't have to have a giant coke for breakfast.
Overall, when it comes to the safety
in Mexico, there isn't that big of
a difference between Mexico versus the US.
As a matter of fact, if you're in
the lowest 1% of income in the US.
You actually have a lower life
expectancy than the average Mexican.
Now, to be fair, there is a little bit of
difference between the life expectancy in Mexico versus the US.
However, if you're coming to Mexico and you have a
little bit of money and you can afford to eat
healthy and you can afford a gym membership, and you
have access to the very best doctors in the private
healthcare system, while eating healthy and exercising, you're probably adding
another 15 years to your life expectancy.
Having access to the very best doctors
in the private healthcare system, you're probably
adding another five years of life expectancy.
So just by doing that, you're getting significantly
above the average life expectancy in the US.
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