Dublin Pilot, etc,
Unfortunately, it is a misconception (that even I held for a while) that what is legal and what is safe are two different things.
If you believe that it is unsafe to fly IFR without a proper alternate and proper quantities of fuel for diversion hold etc then even if the law in one part says to fly you only need enough fuel to take-off and land you can not use that as an excuse for unsafe operation which is the other part of the law that you will be breaking and your insurers will use to avoid their bill.
Remember that the CAA
will prossicute everyone who runs out of fuel. They will not prossicute under the ANO article regarding pre-flight planning and amount of fuel to be carried they will use Reckless endangerment or similar.
Thus if the vast majority of the world use destination , alternate and holding fuel as a minimum and it is the international standard you would find it hard to convice a court they they are wrong and you are right in terms of safety and thus hard to disprove an unsafe operation.
--------
The difference is not between IR and IMC holders.........it is in the way that the rating is for the most part used. Far too many IMC holders will depart on VFR flights with VFR planning and VFR fuel knowing that they will at some stage convert (even for a short while) to an IFR flight. The training, the CAA guidance and as per your post, peer pressure does not enforce the knowledge that such flying is illegal and can result in an accident or at a minimum unnesessarily disrupt normal properly planned and conducted IFR flights.
I am simply trying to get the message across that the vast majority of the flying world look at the IMC rating in part as legalised corner cutting i.e. cut the corner on training,cut the corner on testing, cut the corner on revalidation and cut the corner on operational requirements and you have cut so many corners of the cheese that all that is left is several holes.
--------
Marginal VMC or cases were the visibility could not be established accounted for the vast majoirty.
Thanks for confirming that there is no evidence of IMC flying in the majority of cases.
Regards,
DFC