Good grief. Why are you so concerned about my discussion with HP, yet you don't reply to my post directed at you? HP already replied to my post and apart from the fact that she thinks I'm being a smartarse, her only argument seemed to be that my "true comparison" wasn't exactly perfect either. Which is fair enough.

Thought I was agreeing with you and your post and responding to the people who thought it was all rosey! Wind your neck in...

It is a well publicised fact that the English roads are too narrow and muddy with appalling visibility and English cars are too gutless and the brakes too unreliable to achieve or risk any dangerous speeds.

Look what happens when the English rise above their motoring station:
Mr Bean crashes sports car

Cars are more expensive to insure here so I would conclude that is because there is more chance of an accident.
The death rate per 10,000 cars may be higher in Aus, but you still have more chance of being involved in an accident here purely because of the shear volume of cars.
That was the original point...accidents, not actual deaths.
Its common sense really

Vivalasvegan my necks in thanks
Joanne

I must say i am amazed at peoples views on ozzie driving, we recently spent 5 weeks driving from Adelaide to Brisbane, total of 2,820kilms we done altogether, and thought the standard of driving was excellent, been back to work 2 weeks {i drive a delivery truck in central london} and realised how bad british drivers are, no bugger indicates, rude and aggresive, and when you do give way some people look at you like your a piece of shit. Someone always has to get in the wrong lane and then push in! I've seen the results of 3 accidents this week already,
Not once in oz did i have cause to lose my rag with somebodys idiotic driving. I do spend 50 hours a week driving so see loads of shit, my vote goes to the ozzie drivers................
Just my opinion.

Australians tend to cut in aggressively and quickly on the highways. But I guess you should be alert for this anyhow - or how will people change lanes quickly in rush hour?

They also hate anyone going half way etc to turn right...eg to "force it''.

Apart from that they are ok - traffic is OK. Prefer it to the SE of England.

BM

Mike, you do have a point. Personally, I do like Aussie and I think it is an excellent place for a single, outdoorsy person with no kids, like myself.

However, I would not want to raise kid here because I feel that there would be a strong chance of them adopting an intolerable attitude towards people of different cultures. Also, I really can't stand the superficial friendliness/passive aggressive attitude of laughing with someone as a "mate," and then backbiting them.

In future, if I ever have kids, I'll raise them back in my native USA, where people are real and do not pretend to like you, but, show you they don't like you. It is a lot easier dealing with a person that really dislikes you than dealing with people that pretend to like you

That's something that I had major problems with in the UK. Maybe because I am a "soft touch", but I was ripped off by a few so called "Friends" back there. I don't know what it's like here, maybe not been in the same position, or maybe i'm more careful about who I call a friend these days

going back to the very first post with the table, did anyone notice that the westernised countries with the highest probability of crime are those with the least amount of population?

Australia and Holland more "dangerous" than the USA and UK?

yeah right.

I suspect that to derive this number they devide by the total population as some point. And the fact that there are large pockets of USA where there is little crime doesn't make the whole country safer does it?

Cynical?

These figures represent an average level of crime in these countries. There are always individual differences. The figures were quoted to dispel the myth - believed by some - that Oz is a lower-crime country than UK. It is not.

An interesting observation made by Aussie researchers is that the closer a country is to the Equator, the higher its national crime rate. If I remember correctly, Sydney is roughly the same distance from the Equator as Lebanon

yes
and southern Japan is at the same latitude as Morocco, Tunisia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I lived in Japan and people don't even lock their front doors and I never heard a car alarm.


You keep saying that OZ is not less dangerous than the UK.
It's comparing apple and pears, I believe, as wherever you are in the UK you have thousends of people around or above you, so you are never far away from a dangerous zone.
In OZ, well, from what I gather ther is a bit more space...

PS
I live in the UK

Yeah, more space, but most of it is empty. Most people live in cities and the coastal areas.
And most of the people on here are moving to a city.
And some of them(like me) come from a town or small city.
So, I expect to experience more crime when I'm in Perth.

It all depends what area you're in (all countries)
9 years in Oz (country bits) - nothing stolen etc etc
8 years in the Netherlands (country) - nothing stolen etc etc
(edit: I don't mean that country Oz and country NL don't have crime)



Why can't Holland have more crime than the UK, sunny spell? I don't know what it truly is, but why not?


Anyway, in general: I think the differences are minimal (between all western countries) and it all depends on the area, and maybe luck.
I think it's good Mike starts up debates, though he can generalise a bit much sometimes...
But, as proven once again, there are people who believe there are no 'bad areas' in Oz, so this thread is good!

There is a lot more space in Oz - but not much between most people.

Contrary to the Croc Dundee image, Australia is the most urbanised country on Earth. 80%+ of the Oz population live in Oz's cities.

Comparing UK and Oz? it's pretty much comparing 'apples with apples', mate.

Did someone mention drugs? Sniff....

Drug trafficking offences for 2001:

UK 19,645

Oz 12,697


So, given that UK is 3x Oz population, to compare apples with apples, we would get roughly:

UK 20,000

Oz 38,000

Of course, the high Oz road accident and drug trafficking rates could be related - no hands free to steer - they're too busy rolling joints/sniffing coke...