If "toast" were true, why would they bother with the safety lecture?

I think this Odds report was posted earlier. It says "From 1983 to 2000, the National Transportation Safety Board investigated 26 major commercial accidents involving 2,739 people. A total of 1,525 survived, or 56%." A google turned up similar results, eg, "Survival rate of passengers on aircraft ditching during controlled flight: 60%".

Here's a more pessimistic report: "'AFRCC statistics' quote that 65% of general aviation crash victims do not survive impact. Of the 35/100 survivors, 21 are injured and last about a day while 14 are uninjured initially and have a 'half-life' of about 3 days." I'm guessing the survivors do so poorly partly because they are not prepared. I gather the survival rate from big planes is better than from small ones.

The remote crash is unlikely, but if it happens the chances of not being "toast" are relatively high.