Commuting Etiquette

[QueenSconetta]

QS's little book of Commuting Ettiquette

1. Please sit on your own seat, not half of mine as well.
2. Please keep your coat/scarf/bag/wet umbrella etc off me. I don't know where they have been.
3. Please do not put your bag on one of the only available seats then look at me as if I have asked to shit in your handbag when I have the audacity to ask you to move it so I can sit down. Unless, of course, you have bought a ticket for it.
4. Please do not stand in front of the doors/try to push your way on to the train when people are trying to get off. It is just a lot more efficient if you let people off first.
5. Please don't try and push me on to the train from behind with your belly while I am waiting politely for people to get off the train (you know who you are Sooty Santa Man).
6. Please don't play your music full blast from your phone, or so loud from your earphones I can hear every word. We don't have the same taste.
7. Please do not invade my personal space with your GIANT newspaper.
8. Please do not put your feet on the seats. I don't know what you have trodden in.
9. Please be polite to the ticket inspector. I know they can be grumpy and rude sometimes but manners cost nothing and they are only doing their job.

10. Please do not put your feet so far out in front of your that I can't actually put mine on the floor. Unless you are extremely tall and can't help it. 11. Please do not treat me with utter disdain and as if I have not spoken to you when I politely say excuse me as I need to get past you.

I try to stick to the above when I am commuting because its enough of a pain in the ass as it is, and in the main so do a lot of people. Do you think I am living on a different planet to aspire that one day everyone might be just a little more considerate?

Any others to add?

Please don't actually push my elbow off the armrest when you sit down and then spread your legs and newspaper to take up maximum room so I end up sitting all hunched into my seat so as not to be forced to snuggle up to you. (This is definitely one for the men )

16. Please make sure on dress down day you do not wear your old GAP combats with the crotch rubbed out of them and forget to put pants on!!

(Sorry that is one just for SirCastafiore who did just that one day and looked down to see it winking at him - gawd knows what the poor woman thought sitting opposite - told him I would have pulled the emergency cord and had him arrested for being a dirty perv!!)

17. Please do not bring kids on the train in rush hour - I love my kids but do not want them there during the only quiet (except for wanking teenagers tinny bloody ipod!) hour of the day so please leave your kids at home during 4 and 7 even if it is nice for them to see daddy at the office because I do not like your kids by definition of them not being mine.

barmy army is, I believe, paraphrasing Margaret Thatcher. although she, reportedly said bus not public transport

If you have the misfortune to be standing in the aisle and happen to be wearing a big rucksack, please take the fucker off. I know I have a seat and you probably resent that but knocking me unconscious every time you turn to talk to your mate is not on.

(DH and I have had train weirdo who used to pick all the newspapers up on the train before he got off and fat hairy arsed shit head who sits in the middle of 2 seat and snores like a walrus whilst farting to what seems like the tune to 'I do like to be beside the seaside!)

Sanfair you're so right. If I have moved closer to the window its so I am not pressed up against the entire side of your body, not to give you more space, so when I move closer to the window please don't move over even further.

DH wants to know where you all stand on trumping

I used to have this misery on London Midland. Said very loudly to one bloke once, who was sitting in the middle seat of those horrible rows of three, who had his legs very wide apart, and refused to put them together, after I asked politely

"Please put your legs together. No-one's cock is that size."

It led to much merriment from the other commuters and he got up and hid further down the train, thus giving us more room.

Also from London Midland:

Wearing flipflops does not give you carte blanche to pick your feet and toe nails and eat the bits that you pick off. Eat breakfast before you leave the house.

Do not floss your teeth on the train. Your close neighbours do not want to be covered with bits of last night's stinking dinner and saliva.

My personal bugbear is people who block the escalators - why o why? Some of us are trying to walk up/down to get to/from work quicker. It doesnt happen in London so much as there is a hard and fast rule about standing to one side but elsewhere people think nothing of blocking escalators

don't assume that the person next to the gap in the middle hasn't "moved down", they may in fact have moved down from the other side of the gap iyswim. (has happened to me a number of times). They may also be small and not able to reach anything to hold on to.

Also - no shoving to get on the train.

When I was about 38 weeks pg, I was waiting quite patiently for the doors to open in quite a big crowd of people and there was quite a bit of pushing and shoving.
Without doing it on purpose I cleared my throat as the door opened and the man next to me turned to me looking quite cross then when he saw my stomach and stepped away suddenly looking very apologetic.

Because he pushed into someone else, they got cross and turned to look...and so on.. and suddenly it was like I was Moses parting the red sea.

I didn't cough at that point on purpose but I was sorry I hadn't thought of it earlier

Brilliant thread.

Mrs Pickles is right. When faced with a very heavily pregnant lady, immediately get to your feet and offer her your seat. Otherwise she will retailiate by breaking her waters all over your hand-tooled Churchill shoes.

This especially applies to the Times-reading twats on the Andover to Waterloo!

I know commuting outside of London is a different game entirely, but one of my favourites is Northern Rail's inability to couple two 2-carriage trains together to make a 4-carriage train. On a number of occasions we have sailed off and when I get to my station I look round and go "oh my god, we left the rear carriages behind! And they were the ones who were there first!" - so basically penalised the people who arrived early for the train.

What makes it even more bizarre is I have a friend who works for Northern Rail who informs me coupling carriages together is nothing more than smashing two trains together at low speed.

I did enjoy the time it took us 1 hour to do a 12 minute train journey "due to unusual weather conditions". It was raining. I would argue those are usual weather conditions.

Just because you are speaking a language other than English does not mean you need to conduct your conversation at 92db. HUSH!

Haha love it MrsS, I would love to say that to someone :o
Londonmidland are the bane of my life at the moment.

I hate people who sit on the aisle seat so you have to clamber over them to get to a window seat. Or they 'graciously' get up and let you squeeze past them. Just fucking move up and fill the seats from the window end first. You will have someone next to you regardless.

No nail clipping either.
It's not essential really is it anywhere in public, I'm just glad I had my specs on!

Dental flossing either (in the street, this time though).

I went through nine months without getting a single sodding seat.
And then, six months after, a kind lady offered me hers. I was far too embarrassed for myself to refuse and or embarrass her for offering in the first place.

Oh and when going through the tube barriers, put your ticket / swipe oyster with your RIGHT hand then you can easily collect it with same hand in a smooth movement as you walk through.

The amount of people who use their left hand and have to stop dead and half turn to do it drives me mad!

Don't flump yourself down on the seat so hard that everyone else in the row bounces up and down. Victoria line commuters, you know who you are.

I also had the little neds/chav who say to their little ned/chav pals, loudly 'Soandso is such a fing c, I'm going to kick that fing c's fing c in'.

a) I quite like a good swear myself, but that's a bit much and this time of the morning/after a day at work and in front of people who mught be offended by it
b) I very much doubt you are going to kick his fing c in so shut up.
c) F* is rarely an adjective, so stop using it as one!!

I mean 'I also hate'..

If you're on the bus with a cold, please cover your mouth when you sneeze. I felt the sneeze juice hitting my neck this morning, i felt soiled all day.

Oh and I hate people who comb their hair while sitting next to me.
I do not want your stray hairs / bits of skin all over me.

Anyone combing their hair in public strikes me as very odd. It's usually women with really straight fine hair which looks like it's been combed to death before they left the house anyway. How tangled is it going to get from just sitting on a train?!

Ooo yes, I hate it when people brush their hair in public! Why would you do that?

I know! I have never felt the need to carry a comb or brush around in my handbag!

Brilliant thread. Cheered me up no end.
Any more?