It's because they don't know that you have to 1) wring out or shake off extra water then 2) rub your hands vigorously under the dryer. If you don't do that, it doesn't work (unless it's some turbo dryer I've seen in restaurants recently). Most dryers do not have these instructions printed on the dryer. Are people stupid? I won't answer that, but let's be fair, it's not very intuitive. Tools need to be intuitive and dead simple to succeed in today's society. This is why a lot of people curse computers and/or hate certain desktop apps.
Having said all this I was a little surprised to hear that Humanized—a Windows application [1] that works like Quicksilver in that you can just start typing something you want to do—is gaining popularity. I was surprised because I thought mainly programmers thought "with their fingers" since they [at least I...] find 10 fingers to be some of the most useful tools on the body. However, it also doesn't surprise me because this is a very intuitive way to work: start typing (or, possibly, start saying) what you want to do ... then watch it happen.
Does this mean we are about to see a counter-revolution to the mouse? I certainly hope so.
[1] behind the scenes I believe Humanized is written in Python and Freetype, but that's not so relevant.