Errr, what's wrong with the one that's there already? Yes, of course, I forgot, you have to be up to scratch. Oh well...
Goodness you know how to wind people up.
You Zorst (I take it at least) are surrounded by luxuries at work, your plane has multiple redundancies, it has all those safety features like GPW like you mentioned earlier, it can fly itself if you want it to and with super accurate GPS backed INS systems it makes IFR flight safe and easy. It is a spaceship in comparison to most GA hacks. You may have paid for your instrument rating initially but your airline takes care of most recurrent training and state of the art simulators ensure practice is complete and thorough. Because of all this and an excellent CAA the airlines in this country have a safety record to be proud of.
Now lets look at GA; most people in it are not doing it for a living, they are doing it in their spare time because they enjoy it. Although the CAA has regulatory oversight in the single pilot world safety has to rely on individuals observing good practice at all times. Coupled with the fact that most light aircraft in this country are over 20 years old and falling to bits with poor equipment levels it is not suprising that GA does not share the safety record of the airlines.
What would you do? Ban us because of it?
Or maybe take practical steps like the IMC rating to try and help improve the safety situation.
The point about the IR is a simple one. The FAA IR has much less ground school than the JAA one. A lot of the JAA ground school content is irrelevant to the PPL/IR holder and puts people off, I mean how ridiculous is it that people have to go to Gatwick to take tests that are only held once in a blue moon whereas in the States it can all be done in four weeks or so?
I promise you Zorst it isn't about being thick skulled, or having petty ends, it's simply about having safe flying from limited time and money.