I'd forgotten about this thread ...
yachtpilot thank you for your lovely remark. What is your opinion then about military traffic that cannot be heard? Despite English-only speaking airspace there are still mid-airs.
Jerricho to end this argument and answer your question of WHY, here's my point of view: Speaking a language does not mean understanding it completely. There are a lot of pilots who have trouble with more than one language (including native English speakers). For countries where English is not the native language, using their native language is safer than using the "foreign language". I don't mean to offend people that live in Central and South America, but I feel safer in this dual language airspace than the thought that everyone had to speak English and probably only understand half of it.
And again, yes it is a calculated risk. As a matter of fact the whole aviation industry is a calculated risk. Live with it and be aware.
About what you call "load of cr@p": There's something called the "cocktail party effect" (from the CAA human factors exam). From my experience, there's a higher focus/listening watch on ATC in dual language airspace, than in English-only speaking airspace. In English-only spoken airspace, one listens to a lot of communications but only react when one's callsign is being addressed. I also have flown with one captain to Canada who would complain about the dual language issue and as soon as we crossed the border, he would miss some calls because he didn't pay any attention.
Finally, what about SELCAL? I have never used it, but what I remember from my ground school, you have a visual indication if ATC wants to contact you. So then, you don't listen to ATC all the time, do you?
This problem might be solved in a short time when ATC transmissions are being shown on your MFD instead of VHF/HF comms. Then again, that might pose more problems because no one else besides ATC and the aircraft that is being addressed knows about the ATC instructions.
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