Originally Posted by
tinkicker
Great question not just for this issue but lots of interventions in different settings. There is a reluctance to conduct (and fund) research or control groups studies.
Anyhow: the research coming after the Manchester accident suggested around half of passengers self-reported as paying attention to the safety briefings in the early 1990s. This rose to 80% ish in an Australian study in the mid 2000s.
Of course if half report paying attention it means the other half report as not and there is likely social bias of saying you do when being interviewed about airline safety so the true number is probably lower.
In a nutshell in 2006 the Australian ATSB reported on passenger attention to safety communications saying:
I find compliance with safety announcements really interesting too.
My experience has mainly been of commuting on the London Underground. I've always been a bit paranoid since I vividly remember watching TV coverage of the King's Cross fire when I was a child, and it terrified me. I don't worry about it day-to-day but in the event that I'm in a tube station and they announce a fire alert and evacuation, as happens from time to time if you travel on it enough, I do leave
immediately.
Over the years I've been struck by the differences in attitude of my fellow commuters, which vary hugely depending on how recently there's been a real incident of some kind. In particular I remember arriving at work one morning in late June 2005, having been delayed by an evacuation at King's Cross, aghast at how I'd had to push through my fellow commuters to leave the platform as most of them were determined to stay and continue their journeys uninterrupted by foolish concerns such as burning to death. When the same thing happened a few months later, after the 7/7 bombings,
everybody moved. Over time it became more complacent again, although these are just my non-scientific observations.
I would imagine there is the same up-tick in passengers paying attention to safety announcements on planes following crashes in the news.
Of course this may or may not be reflected in what people actually do when panicking in a smoke-filled cabin.