Handbaggage
Kerosine Kraut please join the real world!
The operating crew can tell passengers anything they like during the Safety Briefing but since the pax don't actually work for the airline concerned they will do EXACTLY what they want in any given situation - whether sensible (legal?) to your understanding or not - herd instinct simply takes over - particularly if there are a large number of non-English speaking passengers on board who may simply have not comprehended the safety briefing!
The safety briefing given before every flight is, in reality, only a set of guideline requests that, as I suspect you are well aware, a great number of passengers simply ignore while reading their paper/book/magazine.
Realistically they simply cannot be enforced - especially in a stressful or emergency situation affecting a large number of people - after all who is going to stop, discipline or sue Mr/Mrs Nameless x 250 if they decide to to take all or part of their hand luggage with them during an emergency evacuation?
When a Captain on a B767 in the early '90s I had to order an emergency evacuation at an airport in the Middle East after experiencing a severe undercarriage problem during take-off after we had burnt off a considerable anount of fuel and re-landed with one inflated operational tyre which then hugely overheated. About 45% of the passengers overall took their hand luggage with them (observably about 95% plus of the women pax took their personal handbags) and about 70% of women pax wearing high heels refused pointblank to remove them in the end the cabin crew simply gave up and concentrated on getting everyone out ASAP.
The evacuations procedures are all OK in theory in the simulator, aircraft mockup or classroom but, in my admittedly limited experience, simply didn't work in a real emergency when the cabin crew were faced with 200+ pax all of whom are in a panic all trying to fight their way out of the aircraft as quickly as possible.