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Original poster

To ask, if you don’t stand behind the yellow line, why?

31 replies

HotCrossBunplease · 17/06/2025 09:19

The poor station attendant at my busy connecting station this morning must have asked passengers in at least 8 different ways to stay behind the yellow line for their own safety, resorting to increasingly graphic pleas like “stand behind the line if you don’t want to get hit by a train”.

Yet I can still see at least 10 people right at the platform edge. What kind of arsehole places train drivers in a position where they are at risk of hitting someone? And fellow passengers and staff witnessing this?

Even if you think you have conducted some sort of bullshit personal risk assessment and know better than the staff, surely it’s just plain courtesy to do as you are asked?

(See also people who ignore cabin crew safety instructions on aircraft)

OP posts:
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fairislecable · 17/06/2025 18:20

I once stood on a platform talking to a young medic, she stood right at the back well away from the yellow lines. She said since she had done a stint in psychiatry and was shocked by how many people have an impulse to push others off the platform this was always going to be her position!

I bear this in mind every time I wait for a train.

FlightCommanderPRJohnson · 17/06/2025 18:17

HonoriaBulstrode · 17/06/2025 18:06

At my local station, there's an announcement telling people to put the brakes on prams and wheelchairs on the platform.

Speaking of buggies, I was on a railway station platform once when there was a woman with a small child in a buggy a little way away. She had all her shopping in plastic carrier bags hanging off the handles. She thought her train was coming in so she took the child out of the buggy and the weight of the shopping made it fall over backwards.

It wasn't her train, so she picked up the buggy and put the child back in.

Few minutes later, another train, so she takes the child out and the buggy falls over again. She looked around and said 'No-one going to help me?'

Well, no. You knew that would happen when you took the child out.

You have to be very careful with buggies on railway platforms - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/547c8fab40f0b60244000153/R172014_140814_Southend_Whyteleafe.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/547c8fab40f0b60244000153/R172014_140814_Southend_Whyteleafe.pdf

GinnyandGeorgia · 17/06/2025 18:15

BashfulClam · 17/06/2025 17:58

Well if like a pp said the train won’t be allowed into the station because people like you are too stupid to follow basic rules the you will have everyone in the station pissed off at you!

Show quote history

I'd rather that than the idiot actually being injured because that delays us even more!

HonoriaBulstrode · 17/06/2025 18:14

....you will have everyone in the station pissed off at you!

You should never arouse the ire of a London commuter - as those Extinction Rebellion twats discovered when they stopped a train at Canning Town.

In the days of the old slam door trains, if you stood too near the edge you risked being seriously clobbered if someone on the train opened a door before the train had stopped.

HonoriaBulstrode · 17/06/2025 18:06

At my local station, there's an announcement telling people to put the brakes on prams and wheelchairs on the platform.

Speaking of buggies, I was on a railway station platform once when there was a woman with a small child in a buggy a little way away. She had all her shopping in plastic carrier bags hanging off the handles. She thought her train was coming in so she took the child out of the buggy and the weight of the shopping made it fall over backwards.

It wasn't her train, so she picked up the buggy and put the child back in.

Few minutes later, another train, so she takes the child out and the buggy falls over again. She looked around and said 'No-one going to help me?'

Well, no. You knew that would happen when you took the child out.

AngelofIslington · 17/06/2025 18:04

Witchling · 17/06/2025 17:21

Because people are fucking stupid.

Absolutely this, As has been proved by a post on this thread

LittlleMy · 17/06/2025 18:01

didntlikeanyofthesuggestions · 17/06/2025 17:36

We don't live in a nanny state. I can stand wherever I want.

But it’s people like you that will eventually cause that to happen 🙄

Arlanymor · 17/06/2025 18:01

Witchling · 17/06/2025 17:21

Because people are fucking stupid.

This. And I have seen trains held up outside of stations before because of this lemming/selfish behaviour. They are making everyone else late and putting other people at risk.

BashfulClam · 17/06/2025 17:58

didntlikeanyofthesuggestions · 17/06/2025 17:36

We don't live in a nanny state. I can stand wherever I want.

Well if like a pp said the train won’t be allowed into the station because people like you are too stupid to follow basic rules the you will have everyone in the station pissed off at you!

Flofortoday · 17/06/2025 17:56

I wouldn't have started a thread but this one has prompted me to express my absolute horror at the many parents who arrived on the platform of my local station pushing babies in buggies. They (adults) usually seem pre-occupied by their phone screens and stand close to the yellow line but turn those buggies towards the platform edge and with one hand push the buggies back and forth. It's very dangerous and I've been very tempted to say something but held back as don't want to be told to mind my own business.

5128gap · 17/06/2025 17:54

didntlikeanyofthesuggestions · 17/06/2025 17:36

We don't live in a nanny state. I can stand wherever I want.

Of course you can't. Wherever you live there will be rules about where you can stand to prevent you causing great cost and nuisance by getting yourself injured or killed.

BashfulClam · 17/06/2025 17:53

Witchling · 17/06/2025 17:21

Because people are fucking stupid.

This!

PracticallyIncompetentInEveryWay · 17/06/2025 17:50

ColinRobinsonsFart · 17/06/2025 17:47

They want to be sucked off?

😅🤣😅 they live in hope

ErrolTheDragon · 17/06/2025 17:49

maybe people do it in the hopes of a Darwin Award?

ResidentPorker · 17/06/2025 17:49

ColinRobinsonsFart · 17/06/2025 17:47

They want to be sucked off?

that must be it…

LittleBitofBread · 17/06/2025 17:48

Because they're so desperate to get on first and get a seat.

ColinRobinsonsFart · 17/06/2025 17:47

They want to be sucked off?

HonoriaBulstrode · 17/06/2025 17:47

I know of two stations where in places the platform is too narrow to stand behind the yellow line. At one, it's because the space behind the line is taken up with the stairs down from the footbridge and seats, at the other it's because there are brick pillars. At the second one, the announcer was once begging people to move along to where it was wider, to the point they said they wouldn't bring the train in until people had moved.

Fingerlakes · 17/06/2025 17:45

Saw a news story quite a few years ago about someone who randomly pushed a stranger off the playform of a tube station as a train was coming in. In stations now I stand by the wall and well away from the edge in train stations.

GreenWheat · 17/06/2025 17:44

didntlikeanyofthesuggestions · 17/06/2025 17:36

We don't live in a nanny state. I can stand wherever I want.

Do you also stand in the middle of the road or on the airport runway then?

Fairyliz · 17/06/2025 17:42

It ought to be part of human natural selection but unfortunately h & s doesn’t allow it.

GinnyandGeorgia · 17/06/2025 17:40

because they need to see someone actually severely injured to realise the rules are there for a reason.

(*Then if it's them or their kid, they will sue because it was dangerous.)

Or the risk of heavy fine, that would work too

lyinginthebathpondering · 17/06/2025 17:39

didntlikeanyofthesuggestions · 17/06/2025 17:36

We don't live in a nanny state. I can stand wherever I want.

Ooh aren’t you so big and clever and cool
🙄

Theunamedcat · 17/06/2025 17:39

didntlikeanyofthesuggestions · 17/06/2025 17:36

We don't live in a nanny state. I can stand wherever I want.

Stop acting like a child and the authorities won't have to treat you like one

Poppins2016 · 17/06/2025 17:39

didntlikeanyofthesuggestions · 17/06/2025 17:36

We don't live in a nanny state. I can stand wherever I want.

But surely basic common sense and consideration for others should prevail? Especially when doing what you want could cause physical harm and/or mental distress...