Safety handrail ?

For your safety,  please hold the handrail.

Sign on moving walkway and escalators.

What if the handrail has some infectious disease on it? How can that possibly be safe?

Especially at an airport,  those germs could spread all over the planet. Or come from some place where you wouldn’t even know where to begin to find the antidote for what you now have.

This is when you realize what an arbitrary word “safety” is.

That and, let’s say you do grab the handrail at the polite printed request, “for your safety”, why then is there not a similar posting for you to let go of the handrail?  Shouldn’t the owners be just as liable for that?

There really shouldn’t be one without the other, right?

If you are following one instruction because you are inspired by the “safety” message, wouldn’t it be just as “safe” to let go at another sign? Otherwise, if you don’t let go, that might be very unsafe,  as you could fall or perhaps even get your fingers torn off, all because now your life is in the hands of whoever is in charge of printing and placing signs.