Cost, demand, and if they cared - they could do what Otis does 
My WAG on this is that even if you jump up from the floor of the lift you don’t change you speed relative to the floor of the lift shaft very much.
Assuming there is some sort of track that the elevator travels in with wheels or whatever to maintain its alignment, you might spend your time rocking the car as violently as you can back and forth or forward and backward. They just might cause enough momentary increases in friction to slow your fall somewhat, it certainly seems more plausible than trying a last second jump. Or, if you happen to pack Wile E. Coyote’s parasol, open it to stop the elevator roof from crashing on you.
Because it’s solving a problem that doesn’t exist? As already stated correctly several times, since the invention of the elevator, the number of people ever killed in the US in a free falling elevator is zero.
Remember that what Elisha Otis invented wasn’t the elevator itself but the safety brake. And he demonstrated this at the World’s Fair in 1854. So the technology is well-established.
Yes, but I was including the rest of the world in the “one fatality ever from falling public elevators” statistic (in Thailand, in 2012). Even your own cite had no fatalities. Elevators are dangerous, sure, but dying from them falling isn’t one of the dangers you should be worried about. unless you’re using private/construction ones.
See post #4 for a link to Cecil’s column.
A wild idea is to climb onto, or jump onto, the roof of the elevator. That roof is software material and the hope is that the bending of the roof gives some (more) shock absorber effect than the floor.
The downside is that you might then get hurt by the cable or falling debris which the roof was otherwise protecting you from. Also the roof may have sharp bits which get squashed into your body.
Perhaps the best strategy for survival is to be Betty Lou Oliver in 1945. She not only survived the B-52 bomber direct hit on the Empire State building (with serious burn injuries), but when she got into the elevator to go to the hospital, its cables snapped, and she plummeted seventy-five goddamn stories to the basement. And lived to tell about it. And as soon as she recovered from the worst day of her life, a few months later, she went back to work on the 79th floor and kept on riding the elevator. One tough mama. They don’t make 'em like they used to!
How?
From a thread a few years ago, here are my posts regarding the efficacy of jumping just before the elevator hits bottom:
Ahem. points at post #19
Assuming the elevator is in a true free-fall, you just have to jump hard enough so that you would jump as high as the elevator just fell to cancel out the velocity that you’ve achieved during your fall. In other words, if the elevator just fell 80 feet, you’d have to jump hard enough that if you were standing on solid ground you’d jump 80 feet into the air.
Now in the real world, the elevator isn’t going to fall in a frictionless free-fall. So you probably really only need to be able to jump 40 feet into the air or so.
And you have to time it so that you jump just before the elevator hits. Jump too soon and you’ll just splat yourself against the roof of the elevator as your vertical descent stops and the elevator continues to fall at a high rate of speed.
So, um… yeah… I’m thinking there might be some practical issues with this approach.
This reminds me of an incident from many years ago, when, for the only time in my life, I attended an opera. (My grandmother asked me to take her, that’s my only excuse.)
We were milling about during intermission, when there was suddenly a great commotion, as paramedics entered and soon after wheeled a woman out on a gurney.
The next day, the news reported that she was a member of the chorus and had got the long scarf of her costume trapped in closing elevator doors. She was strangled when the elevator ascended.
I know, shades of Isadora Duncan.
Don’t most elevators have security cameras? They won’t help you survive but you could like moon it or something on the way down.
Now that we’ve settled that, how would one survive a free falling escalator?
I was in an elevator that went into free fall once. I got on on the 12th floor and it started right afterwords, maybe around 10 ir 11. The emergency mechanical breaks kicked in and stopped me at the 5th floor. It all happened so fast I didn’t even have time to be scared shitless. I really doubt anyone could do much of anything in response, it just happens way too fast.
Sorry mate, i think you killed the links. The one to Cecil column doesn’t go anywhere.
Sorry, I screwed up the links the first time. I think it’s right now. Thanks for the heads up, stui magpie.
It’s pretty much out of your hands. There just isn’t much you can do in that circumstance except attempt to shriek a previously thought-out prayer for mercy from whatever deity you prefer…
Or you could trust the safety devices in the elevator itself: See item 9.
This was discussed by Cecil himself in this column.
I know it probably isn’t a help, but from a rational approach, elevators appear to be a safe way to travel.
What would happen if the elevator was full of water?
Nasty surprise when the doors open?