Gomer,
When you put it like that I can only agree with you! Unfortunately, the larger oil companies that are willing to spend the necessary cash to improve the safety of their own operations don't necessarily cause their lesser cousins to follow suit. However, some of them do try to improve the situation by lobbying the regulators to apply changes, including the mandating of certain equipment fits to enhance safety etc. (for example: TCAS is only really useful if the rest of the pack have suitable transponders fitted - and switched on!!)
But it is not only the oil companies that can bring about the changes. As long as there are operators willing to operate to lower standards and pilots willing to accept them, there will always be customers who will use them as a means of saving money. Change any one of the components of this equation and things should improve - i.e. pilots could actually improve things by not accepting to fly in a helicopter, single or twin, which does not have suitable equipment fit to optimise the safety of its operation..... but I guess that is hardly likely to happen as some guys are just willing to fly anything for the sake of earning a crust.
If you want some general statistics for helicopter operations wordlwide, you can find stats for 2000-2003 on the publications page of the OGP website -
Click Here It may be a UK website, but the data is global!!
Enter the word helicopter in the search box and enter - you can download the .pdf reports free of charge
The breakdown of info is by helicopter general type rather than manufacturer type, but may make useful reading for some.