Unless one has been outside the confines of the comfy western world it's hard to grasp what life is like elsewhere.
For my time outside the comfy western world, I've seen people doing things at work, which the highly litigious comfy western world would not tolerate. That's why what we buy here in North America is well covered with warning stickers, and will stop if your butt comes off the seat. Somebody won a lawsuit against somebody else, so somebody else, then everybody else, learned that it's less costly to warn and guard us into safety, 'cause they cannot train us to be safe. We should be safe anyway.
It would be silly to suggest that the life of a machine operator from some part of the world has less
value than the life of a machine operator. But the
cost of a life (or injury) seems different. So it leads employers in North America to be generally more wary of employing test pilots, unless that's actually the job. When it's the job, extra precautions are taken (like at least seatbelts!).
If you need to push to the limits, at least
know the limits, and have a means of knowing that you're getting close, before you get to the limit! Then, take appropriate precautions. I don't normally wear the seatbelt in my tractor nor excavator, and I do not know the precise tip angles for either. But, If I'm operating on any slope or handing a high C of G load, I put my seatbelt on, and both machines have ROPs.
'Ever been a part of the rescue team extricating an injured tractor driver from under his flipped over tractor? I have....
