Do We Really Still Need to Be Taught How to Operate Seat Belts?

I fly a lot and usually ignore the safety demos. That’s not to say I’m not conscientious about safety. I always note where the nearest exits are – both in front and behind me – and when I’m in an exit row, I review what maneuvers are required to open the emergency exit should I be called upon to do so.

On a flight this week, the flight attendant made a particular point of asking everyone to please put down their books, open their eyes, and pay attention to the safety demo. And that’s when I realized that they still teach us how to buckle and un-buckle a seat belt.

Okay, I understand that there are people in this world who have never seen a seat belt, and so I can understand why such instruction might be necessary. I imagine, however, that such people live in third world countries and consequently I don’t understand why we still do this on domestic flights. If they took a plane to get here, they’ve already been instructed how to operate the belt in question. And of course, this also presumes that people who don’t know how to use a seat belt also speak English since that’s the only language in which the safety demo is conducted.

Seat belts were first used in aircraft in the 1930s. The engineer that invented them for Ford did so based on his experience as a military flight instructor and they weren’t standard in the front seats of cars until 1964 – rear seat belts became standard in 1968 – and the first seat belt law was passed in 1970 in Australia.

So I started thinking if there is any other technology that has been in common usage since the 1960’s for which instructions are still provided. The first one that came to mind was the touch-tone phone. When you pick one up today, do you hear a voice instructing you to “Depress keys with the numbers corresponding to the telephone number which you wish to reach, in the same sequence as the telephone number itself. After depressing the key with the last number, wait a brief moment until your call is connected. Once you have finished with your call, replace the handset in the cradle. This will terminate the connection.”

When you pick up the remote control for the TV, is there a reminder that you press the “Power” button to turn the device on and off, and how to use the Channel and Volume buttons?

And have you recently picked up a can of soda or beer and been stymied by the pop-top device, wishing instead that you still lived in the days when you needed a pointy can-opener to do the job?

Let me know if you can think of others. I just wish flight attendants would give us detailed instructions in how to open those tiny bags of pretzels or peanuts without either spilling them all over or elbowing our seat neighbor when trying to pull the seams on the bag apart and they suddenly give way. Now that would be helpful safety information.