Mexico City, Mexico

I travel to the Yucatan at least once a year, somtmiees twice and always rent a car. Your credit card insurance will do you no good at the time of the accident.They ask you to pay the bill and send them a claim. They will take up to 45 days to render a decision on whether to pay or not. It works differently than in the US. I have had an accident on Hwy 307 in the Yucatan. Luckily it was not my fault but there are several things you need to know:1. Everything is settled at the scene of the accident. The insurance agents and the rental car company will be called and will arrive to negotiate the terms.2. If you owe anything, they will want all of their money for the damage right then and there. You will have to pay them cash.3. Everything is negotiated in Spanish.4. In my experience the police were extremely helpful. They handed the other drivers license to me and told me (in Spanish of course) to keep it until the insurance agents and rental car company arrived. That was my assurance that he would have to pay.5. I had purchased all the insurance (I used Executive and I highly recommend them). and everything was taken care of. I drove the car to the airport in Cancun and the Executive employees were waiting for me and whisked me to the airport so that I could catch my plane. The accident scene took over an 90 minutes to resolve. The bribe you're talking about is called a mordita. Usually you are stopped for speeding or doing something wrong. They simply take cash instead of writing a ticket. However, there are cases where people say they were stopped for no reason. Although I think they are few. One thing I do is carry my old expired drivers license in an old wallet with less than $10. If I'm stopped, then I show him that that license and the money he just waves me off. It's not worth the bother. And if he did take my license. who cares? It's expired anyway. So just watch your speed and be careful with one-way streets particularly in Playa del Carmen. There is a lot of construction right now since they are building a new overpass on the highway. Just go slow and watch carefully. I hope that helps. Have a fun time!

Renting a car is pretty much the same in Mexico as in the US. I posrenally found the prices cheaper if you book in advance just through the same websites you'd use if you were renting a car in the US. (avis, budget, dollar, etc.)As for insurance, we booked on a credit card that offered car rental insurance. I called the credit card company in advance and confirmed that the insurance covered car rentals in Mexico and even printed the information from my cardholders agreement that stated so. We didn't need it so can't say how much trouble it would have been if we would have actually had to make a claim.Sometimes, and not that often, Police can stop you looking for a bribe. Generally the way it happens is you commit some sort of infraction and they give you the option of pay a bribe or get a ticket. If you drive safely and don't commit any infractions you shouldn't be stopped. This is not common, it's only happened to me a few times in many years of driving.You should watch out for gas station attendants especially around the Cancun area. They have some tricks to try to rip off people getting gas. The common ones are: hanging the pump, where they don't reset the pump to zero before they start putting gas in your car.If you are not paying attention they may stop short of the requested amount. Lets say you ask for $400 pesos, they will pump in $200, stop the pump, enter the digits for $400 pesos then ask you for the $400 pesos.Lastly, you give them a $500 peso note and they switch it for a $50 and then tell you you only gave them $50. (or the $20 / $200 switch) Personally I don't know who they get with this one because the bills are all different colors, and smaller bills like $20 $50 peso notes are physically smaller too, but I have had someone try it on me.Chances are these things won't happen to you if you are alert, don't let fear mongers deter you.