Originally Posted by
dera
This is how most pilots get up to 40 hours Instrument before their IR checkride. So yes - those hours are loggable (and yes, they are boring as heck).
It's exactly what I did to build up hours for my instrument and practice flying solely in reference to instruments. I normally think of safety pilot in relation to someone building hours for the instrument. That's the reason I was wondering why they needed to be instrument rated. I would think most safety pilot time is working toward the instrument, since combines getting time along with instrument training. But I could be wrong.