Where Americans die abroad, and why: By the numbers
Of course you should beware of crime while planning and making your next international trip. But the numbers say that if you’re among the unlucky few to die, a car, bus or motorcycle is more likely to kill you.
Death by traffic is a recurring theme in a fascinating State Department Web page that I came across last week.
For instance, by the department’s count, of at least 126 Americans who died of “non-natural causes” in Mexico in the first half of 2009, at least 45 perished in vehicle accidents. The figure for homicides: 36. The figure for drownings: at least 22, 10 of them in Baja California Sur (which includes Los Cabos and La Paz) and seven in the state of Quintana Roo (which includes Cancun and Cozumel). Other types of accidents, and suicides, accounted for the rest.
Keep in mind that during that spell from January through June 2009, about 2.6 million Americans boarded flights to Mexico and many more visited by car or ship. The odds overwhelmingly suggest that your vacation will be nonfatal.
I had gone looking for tourist death statistics because these days, whenever we run a story on a Mexican destination, such as my recent one on Queretaro, we ask some experts to offer perspective on safety, especially regarding the drug war and H1N1 flu.
But until last week, I’d never come across these State Department numbers. They might be the best perspective check I’ve ever found on the real risks that come with travel anywhere. Or, for that matter, the risks of staying home.
Here’s how the website works: Under federal law, the State Department is required to disclose statistics on American citizens who die abroad of nonnatural causes. So on this page, tucked away in an easy-to-miss corner of the department website, federal officials have collected data on American deaths on foreign soil going back to 2002.
You can search it by country, month or both. Nobody’s name is included, and there’s no way of knowing whether any death is associated with drug wars or any other social phenomenon. But the deaths are broadly categorized (homicide, suicide, traffic accident, drowning, other accident), and cities and states are listed.
The data seem to lag about six months behind, and in some countries, it’s hard to tell whether the data are missing or the number is really zero. Also, the fatality list covers almost all Americans abroad, so many or most of the victims here may not be tourists but expats who have lived abroad for years or people with dual citizenship. The State Department’s disclaimer also notes that some deaths may be missing, including U.S. government and military personnel, and people whose deaths were not reported to the State Department.
But it’s a compelling and instructive read all the same. For instance:
– In the first half of 2009, State Department figures show just four nonnatural American deaths in Canada: three by auto accident in Chilliwack, British Columbia, and one by suicide in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
– Between June 2008 and June 2009, the State Department reported six nonnatural American deaths in Britain: three by auto or motorcycle accidents, two by other accidents, one by suicide.
— Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer
Photo: A Mexican army commander calls for assistance after a car accidentally collided with an army pickup truck that was patrolling the crowded streets of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, this year. Traffic accidents are a common cause of death among Americans abroad. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times
9 Comments on “Where Americans die abroad, and why: By the numbers”
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November 9th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Outstanding resource. Travelers need to be better informed when travelling overseas to help ensure a safe trip. I cover Ecuador for safety and security at http://www.ecuadortraveladvisory.com and my tally just for the last two three months is five foreign nationals murdered in Ecuador. All information obtained from open sources. Travel warnings or information from government sites are sometimes delayed.
Ecuador - foreigners murdered in the last three months
2- U.S. Ambato, Manta - shooting
1 - German,Ecuadorian - Dual - Guayaquil - shooting
1 - French - Quito - shooting
1- Iranian - Quito - shooting
All three cities are currently under a state of emergency which to date does not seem to have impacted the current crime wave.
Regards,
Nicholas Crowder
Author-Culture Shock!Ecuador
November 9th, 2009 at 9:42 am
OOOPS. I missed it at the top of the piece. Humble apologies as I exit with hat held over my bowed face.
November 9th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
ironically a similar number of Mexicans die on the way up to the land of plenty…. could the virgen Lupita have anything to do with that?
November 10th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Mexico is not safe period! A shocking 32% of all non-natural deaths of U.S. citizens outside this country occur in Mexico. Many of these deaths are a direct result of poor or nonexistent safety standards both inside and outside of the resorts. To read tragic Mexico vacation DEATH stories, many written by heartbroken family members as well as stories written by victims that “survived” their Mexico vacation go to: http://www.mexicovacationawareness.com
November 11th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Five murders in Ecuador? “Mexico is not safe?” Get real. (I’m writing this post on the Amtrak train from San Diego; I’m returning from my seventh visit to Mexico this year.)
As the story points out, percentage-wise, your chances of getting killed in Mexico are pretty low. LOTS of tourists die in the US, too - five Italians were killed in a helicopter crash in NYC just a few months ago (the year before, two Brits were killed by a city garbage truck. In 2008, four students from India were murdered in the US (separate incidents.) Miami is considered so dangerous that many nations warn their citizens about traveling there. (As long as we’re all manipulating numbers here, did you know that the murder rates in New Orleans and Washington DC - two big-time tourism cities - are higher than Iraq’s?)
Of course, most foreigners who die in the US aren’t tourists. At least twice as many (that’s the conservative estimate) Mexicans die in just one US state - Arizona - than Americans die in the entire nation of Mexico every year.
They perish in the brutal heat as they try to cross the desert (our border wall program has simply pushed people attempting to make the traverse into the most deadly regions, where there are fewer such fortifications - and to those who say that this is different, because the migrants are doing something illegal…we’re talking about safety for human beings globally here.)
I’m sorry for the losses people have experienced, but travel - third world or not - has risks. One of the risks is just plain bad luck, which is tragic. But for the most part, preparation - like knowing when to drive, when not to; carrying your medication; knowing your limits; and following your instincts about what feels right (and what doesn’t) - works just fine.
(Of course, you could just stay home and go skiing - only 51 Americans died on the slopes of U.S. resorts last year.)
The truth
November 12th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Thank you for providing such a tremendous public service…I live just a few miles from the Mexican border and never go more than a few miles from the border when I visit Mexico on personal business!! I rarely visit there as it is, but my future trips will be only those of necessity…
November 12th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I wonder how many of those Americans killed were BUYING DRUGS??
November 12th, 2009 at 9:54 am
search Haiti- two pages of murder.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:45 am
The State Department definitely gives us some perspective on how people are dying abroad. Overall, Mexico is very safe to travel to and the statistics support that.
If you can search for specific cases of homicide in Mexico, you will most likely find that the “tourist” was not a tourist at all. They were in Mexico to facilitate the trade of drugs, guns, and money. I doubt you plan on purchasing drugs next time you visit Cabo.
Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do at home and I guarantee you will be safe. The media uses scare tactics, how else do you think they will make money?