I think it is worthwhile comparing the airline accident record between mainline legacy 1st world European (ie France, UK,Germany, Dutch, Scandinavian etc) ops and North American mainline ops. Both fly modern Western aircraft in a fully regulated environment and under effective ATC. The only significant difference that I can see is that you will never see a low time pilot at the controls of a mainline jet in North America. The average new hire on a domestic narrow body in North America has traditionally had multi thousands of hours of flying. In Europe however 250 hr new hire FO's are common. It is also a fact that the North American accident rate for mainline jets has been lower than European operators for at least the last 30 years and the gap appears to be widening. It is always dangerous to attribute cause and effect but the consistency of the data does seem to point to the intangible benefit practical experience has in reducing accidents. Supporting this hypothesis is the glaring disparity in accident rates between regional Part 121 carriers and their mainline brethren. Again the regionals operate with much more inexperienced crew.