WAG?
Isn’t just a matter of common sense?
“Common sense” to one person is blind tradition to another. Just asking if I should bother with this ritual.
There is also the fact that preparation of most vegetables involves more than just rinsing. Lettuce, for example–I generally remove and compost the outmost leaves. Since many of the dangerous germs are passed to veggies by other hands, peeling off the outer leaves of lettuce and cabbage will get rid of most of those germs, even without washing.
Many vegetables are also peeled. Personally, I don’t like the taste of unpeeled carrots, so I peel them even when I just want to eat one raw. Again, the process of peeling will remove most of the germs on the outer skin. (I usually rinse after peeling, since it’s easier to rinse dirt off peeled veggies than it is unpeeled veggies).
Rinsing well does remove dirt, especially from veggies without multiple layers. Personally, I hate eating spinach salad that crunches from dirt that wasn’t washed off. Lettuce and cabbage are tight enough to keep dirt out, but spinach and other loose-leaf lettuces I rinse individual leaves.
I rinse other vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, etc.) well, and wipe them with a paper towel. No, it probably doesn’t kill everything, but the surfaces of those vegetables are smooth, which means that there aren’t lots of crevices for germs to hide in.