Bravo,
I would agree with you that UK pilots are considerably more risk averse but I would argue that that difference is based on the type of operations conducted and the scale of those operations in our respective areas. I suppose I cant blame an offshore or ems pilot, from either side of the pond, for looking at someone essentially longlining from an R44 and deem it 'unsafe' out of hand.
The leading cause of accidents will always be people running into stuff and not engine failures in the HV curve. As far as your ascertation regarding emperical evidence as pertains to accident rates I would ask that you point me in the direction of a study that bears that out. There are considerably more hours flown in both sectors, especially ems, flown in the US than the UK and Im not aware of any statistics where that difference in scale is accounted for.
My point is that for people who come from a place where real utility flying is rare at best, just about anything but straight and level looks 'unsafe' or 'completely barking' as SilsoeSid put it so eloquently. Some of us dont like being called 'completely barking' for doing our jobs- its a different story when we're on the ground
.