U.S. motorists brave Mexico border violence for fuel.

A recent article about cross-border shopping for fuel in southern California inadvertently points out how miserably people perform risk-reward calculations. One driver, when asked about his cross-border fuel shopping, in light of rampant drug violence in Sinaloa MX these days says:

“‘I know they could kill me or kidnap me, but the cost of filling my tank in the United States is just too much,’ he said.”

Either they are full of false bravado, rampantly over-estimating the risks of being attacked or kidnaped, or simply ignoring the risks and making (in my opinion) a poor choice. I could not imagine that my life is worth a few hundred dollars in fuel savings. Which I suppose leads me back to the over-estimating (or at least over-stating) the risks to satisfy a self-interested machismo laced agenda.

(Via Reuters.)