Is the USA safer than the UK? // UK vs USA Safety (HONEST Experience)

but again most of the crime in the uk is crime that doesn't require any sort of firearm in order to handle that is a very u.s sensibility i took me maybe 10 minutes because i had to like park do a three-point turn and kind of just show that i was like alive and at the steering wheel [Music] hey guys welcome back to the girl gone london channel if you're new here my name is kaelyn i'm an american who's lived in the uk for almost 10 years and today i'm answering the question of do i feel safer in the u.s or the uk now safety is a huge issue that people often kind of look up whether you're moving somewhere whether you're visiting somewhere how safe do people feel how safe will i be and i do want to say that this video is not filled with statistics this is my personal experience and so that means that it is from an experience of somebody of my race my gender and my age which is in my late 20s if you have different experiences definitely comment below and let me know i can only compare what i have experienced which is again why i'm not trying to claim that this is a video about everybody's experiences of safety in either country these are just more categories that i feel i can talk about and whether it makes me feel safe or not so the first thing i want to talk about and i've kind of come up with a few different categories again to compare the countries and my experiences in the countries the first one which is more london-centric is cctv which is basically security cameras or security footage london is one of the most cctv filled cities in the entire world i think it ranks like three or four it's definitely up there and definitely no american city compares this is really well known about london there is controversy of whether it should be filled with so much cctv tracking everybody's every move for me i feel like this gives me a level of safety in london that i do feel things are being watched if a crime were to occur that hopefully it would be caught on some sort of cctv footage and again i'm only talking about london on this one and i am not talking about the rest of the uk but in general london it is worth pointing out first of all is like a really safe city statistically anyway but there's a lot of cctv and that makes me feel more comfortable now the next thing i want to talk about is actually going away from um cities or rural and taking it to the road so let's talk about you know safety on the road i think this is something that a lot of people overlook but i kind of wanted to include it because it is part of why i ultimately feel safer in one country over the other so here in the uk they have what's called an mot this means that your car needs to be tested by a mechanic or a garage a licensed one every single year to make sure that it is roadworthy now when they're doing this check they're not necessarily checking for like cosmetic things or things that would affect how the car runs or how it performs for you they're testing whether this car is roadworthy and safe to be on the road makes sense when you compare this to the state that i'm most familiar with which is florida in the u.s we don't have anything like this we used to have vehicle inspections i think back in the day but it hasn't been a thing for like 20 years so you can basically drive whatever car you want at whatever time in whatever situation it's in on the road i didn't even realize this as something to be nervous about until my british husband brought this up like don't you feel kind of uncomfortable that like the guy behind you could have a car that's about to explode and i hadn't really thought of it before but now that i do know about mots and i have lived in the uk i can say that when it comes to roadworthiness of the cars driving around me i definitely prefer the uk the other thing to mention and i am going to do a video on driving in the uk versus the us but i can tell you that the driving test in the uk is like an actual driving test that takes about an hour and you really got to know your stuff to pass they take you on the actual roads in florida again the state i'm most familiar with which is why i cannot compare to other states so comment below if your state is different but in florida when i pass my driving test we definitely went in a parking lot i think we went like on a really slow neighborhood back road for like 20 miles an hour and i took me maybe 10 minutes because i had to like park do a three-point turn and kind of just show that i was like alive and at the steering wheel and so when i compare that to the driving test that people in the uk have to go through to pass i would say probably feel safer with uk drivers on the road that doesn't mean that everyone here is a good driver it doesn't mean that everyone in the us is a bad driver or that i just feel unsafe there i'm not saying i feel unsafe in the u.s on the road i'm just saying if i have to make a comparison and make um make a judgment on which country i feel safer in it would be the uk now the next topic to get into is probably the one you clicked on this video for and that has to do with guns so guns are not legal in the uk except for very very specific instances these relate to like farmers needing them for their livestock i think there are a couple other things related to like sporting guns or sporting rifles but in terms of handguns semi-automatic guns things like that not allowed not okay and not part of the culture here that people care about having guns obviously being from the us i can speak to this we do have a gun culture you will probably experience my opinions about guns as i get through this comparison but we definitely live in a society that makes it so much easier to own a gun whether it's for hunting your safety personal safety or whatever you feel like it's for compared to the uk there's no gun culture here they are not allowed and obviously that makes me feel pretty safe i enjoy going to the shopping mall the movie theater or whatever and not fearing that some you know mass gun violence is going to occur they did have some instances here in the uk a particular one is called dunblane a really tragic incident that changed a lot of their gun laws not that they were like america before but definitely made it so that the british public got behind this idea of guns not being allowed not being okay not being something that people needed and it's just such a different culture and atmosphere surrounding firearms that exists in the us and again i know that there are very specific instances where they are allowed here and sure i'm sure that some criminals do have access to them or could get them illegally but it is much much much more difficult so in that sense again i would much prefer to live in the uk if you are comparing on that topic i feel much more secure there are other types of crimes there are things like knife crimes but nothing that would really allow a sort of mass crime or mass casualty event like we um really sadly experience in the us now on the topic of firearms did you know that most uk police officers are not even armed with a gun they are armed with like a taser or they might have some other kind of lesser weapons but the society isn't armed and most of the police officers aren't either now people often ask me if this makes me feel unsafe and first of all i would say that there always is kind of a part of me that has grown up being fearful of gun violence and gun incidents and so occasionally i do wonder um you know like how long would it take for the police officers who do have guns to arrive at the scene if some crime were to happen but again most of the crime in the uk is crime that doesn't require any sort of firearm in order to handle that is a very u.s sensibility there is a real atmosphere here of policing not by force whereas i think in the u.s we have more of a police by force culture which is a whole other topic but here in the uk police officers are definitely seen in a different light than in the u.s they're not really people to be scared of i would say most people sometimes maybe go the opposite direction and definitely aren't scared of them enough but there is not a culture of policing by force or by firearms here i did mention and i do want to point out that some police officers and i don't know comment below if you can tell me um like which ones are specifically licensed or if they're called something different but some police officers and some units are licensed to use firearms and do carry them in the uk so it's not that like nobody no police officer has access to one it's just that um the ones that you'll usually pass like walking down the street probably don't but there are armed police officers and often i see them at train stations and in other crowded areas which always makes me feel a bit safer they can be called into an incident like i said but if you're a brit comment below let me know um more on that like i said this is a video of my personal experiences not a deep dive into the safety or statistics of both places i just know that in general most british police officers do not carry guns and guns are not allowed in the uk in most instances now the last thing i want to talk about is personal safety and i try to think of a way to compare this it's so difficult because it's so hard to compare like a village in southeast england with new york city or the suburbs of florida with london so it's really really hard i think to say do i personally feel safer just like on a daily basis walking around in the u.s or the uk but if i do have to compare and i'm going to go ahead and compare london to cities that i've been in in the u.s places like new york city i lived in pittsburgh for a while for my undergraduate degree which i really loved but i would say that i have felt personally safer in london and london by itself just without any kind of comparison like i said is a really safe city the crime rates i think are much lower than a lot of major cities and a lot of people have their own problems with london but for me as a single woman who well i'm not a single woman now but like if i'm walking around by myself if i'd stayed late for drinks after work or something like that i have never been in a situation in london where i felt unsafe or threatened obviously you do have to have street smarts don't be walking by yourself at 3am in a dark alley don't be walking down a dark alley anyway but in general when it came to my feeling of safety in london versus my feeling of safety in other places that i've been in the u.s i'm going to go ahead and have to give the personal safety feeling award to london and that basically means that every single category i've come up with road safety um physical safety um guns versus no guns police officers and things like that i pretty much answered that i feel safer in the uk and i want to point out some things number one that isn't to say that i never that i ever felt unsafe in the u.s or that i've been in a situation in like a u.s city where i was walking around and felt threatened or unsafe it's not that when i go back to the u.s and i'm driving i look at every car around me wondering if it's roadworthy so this is really me having to make a decision in order to film this video and to really have an opinion on it it's not that i feel like the us is um incredibly dangerous from a personal day-to-day life perspective that being said when it does come to gun violence obviously the us is off the charts much more dangerous and also i do want to acknowledge that again this is based on my experience based on my race gender and age and i know that different people will have different experiences in either country really of how safe they feel related to these different categories which is why i would totally welcome you to leave a comment below again this is not to be taken for um you know a research statistics video or a video speaking for everyone or anyone except myself and my own feelings comparing how i felt in both countries so safe to say the uk did win and that is one of the things along with the nhs that does make me uh really enjoy and feel comfortable in my life in the uk it's not to say don't miss the us or that i think the us is like a terrible place because if you watch some of my other videos you'll know that's not the case but if we're answering the safety us versus uk comparison the uk ended up winning okay so that brings me to the end of the video get involved in the conversation below subscribe if you want to hear more about my opinions or experiences of life in the uk versus the us i hope you enjoyed the video and i'll see you guys next time

Channel: Girl Gone London

Views: 95,918

Rating: 4.90838 out of 5

Keywords: american in the uk, american in england, american expat in england, british life, american across the pond, american expat, uk vs usa safety, uk vs us police

Id: gI_0lbp19zM

Length: 13min 45sec (825 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021