The subject of the "Safety Briefing" comes up every now and again.
The thread usually starts with someone observing, correctly, that as a procedure it's ineffective when employed in 95% of the flights that operate every day around the world.
Then a mixture of retired crew and self-declared frequent flyers waving their willies about how often they fly pile in, missing the point entirely, and assert correctly that it's necessary for passengers to know what to do in an emergency.
Whatever might happen in the USA, in the rest of the world the briefing will be given in the carrier's language and again, if you are lucky, in broken English that's often unintelligible to English speakers, let alone the, say, 25% - 50% of the passengers who speak neither the carrier's language nor English.
The briefing as still practised where there's no video has not changed in any significant way since I first saw it in 1965.
The demo of putting on a life jacket is fine, but go round the cabin after it, as I have done, and ask a selection of passengers to actually find it and get in into their hands quickly, and most will fail to do that.
The ritual, silly little dance movement "showing the exits" merely tells the watcher that there are doors front and back, to someone who understands that's what the vague, choreographed wave is about.
Pointing out that this pointless farce is ridiculous does not condemn me as someone who doesn't understand that passengers need to know what to do, and be reminded frequently.
It just puts me in the category of those who think, sorry, know that a better way must be found of achieving that.
Statements like
The other 10% is used to find the pratts who are going to get in my way to the emergency exit when the Sh*t hits the fan. If you are one of those pratts then I will tread all over you...
simply tell me that whoever says it is an idiot. It's a very good thing that OyYou was not on board US1549, where he could easily have been solely responsible for the deaths of a lot of people as he trampled his way over them to the exit.