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?

PrivetDancer/MissM - oh yes the manic hairbrush forward then and flick backwards that sprays hair and dead skin all over the carriage. Literally makes me shudder.

Mind you someone vomiting over me on the Tube was a fairly low point too.

Travelling home from a night out on what my friend calls 'the karaoke special' (last train from city to deepest rural dormitory town) was always an eye opener. You usually made a pal!

This one I know I'm being unreasonable for but I can't help it getting the rage a bit even though I know I'm being a fanny: Don't sit in my seat, its my seat, not yours so don't sit in it. I know I have been off for 9 months and you might have sat in it all that time but its mine so get off

Also, not so unreasonable: You and I have been getting the same train everyday for the past 4+ years. I don't want to be your friend, I don't even want to speak to you but not looking at me like I have just pissed on your lunch would be nice.

Bloody hell I've been a bad commuter. For most of my twenties I lived in London, was always running late in the morning for a demanding job where appearances mattered, so was ALWAYS doing my make-up on the tube, brushing my hair, etc etc. The Northern Line was my dressing room.
Then I used to read four - yes FOUR - newspapers one after the other (tabloids naturally). And probably make a couple of calls from stations where you had a brief reception (Sloane Square, I recall).

I can understand why some of you don't like it. But I won't repent. I'll just admit that now, post-children, I'm not nearly so vain have energy left to look in a mirror

I'd always help tourists find the right platform, and pregnant women sit down, and old folk though - does that make up for my sins? (pun intended)

If I move my leg to stop it from touching yours, please don't assume I'm making more room for you.

If you keep spreading your legs while I am squishing myself into the smallest corner of my seat, I will reserve the right to ask you VERY loudly if you have an STD which makes your balls swell

Confession time.
I did used to put my make up on, ten minutes from Liverpool Street, every day.

This was due to
a) a one year old
b) a two year old
c) getting a) and b) to nursery for 7.30 and me on the 7.42.

a) + b) +c) = one utterly shagged mummy trying to make the best of a bad lot just before work.

Sorry, I apologise to all now.

Valpollicella - oh yes the 'spready leg thing' is really annoying.

I feel like leaning over sometimes and saying 'Listen mate I have particularly fine pair and have a certificate to prove it but not even they need that much air.'

BeenBeta. Glad to know this annoys men as much

Two that should go without saying but have both happened in the last year so maybe not.

1. Do not give your boyfriend a blow job on the back seat of the bus, I do not want to feel like I am in the middle of a porn film on the evening commute.

2. Under no circumstances is it acceptable to wonder up and down a train carriage stark naked, EVER! I don't know you, have no desire to get to know you, and therefore have absolutely no need to see your cock.

Such classy people around here

Grrr commuting

1. Turn your fucking music down on the MP3 player please, I can hear the damn lyrics of the song.

1. Hey Mr Telegraph, I realise that you have a very large paper but if that damn page hits me in the face again when you turn it, I'm gonna flick you very hard on the ear.

1. In winter when you get on after waiting for a delayed train for 45 minutes and the person who gets the first seat and blocks the aisle and makes everyone wait while proceeding to take off their overcoat, hat,jacket, mittens on a sting, FFS move out of the way.

4.Clearly you spend a lot of time on your nails lady, but if you don't stop flinging nail filings my way...etc

1. People who eat with their mouths open.

1. People who get on a packed commuter train with a muddy wet bike and if they do manage to ram it in a space, that they can keep control of it by just holding the seat with one hand. I got all the way to work before I realised that I had a big muddy tyre print on my new coat.

1. Idiots who try taking calls on the part of the track that has many tunnels. "Hello Hello, ah sorry for some reason it keeps cutting out" Dickheads.

After 20 years commuting I have many many many more, but thats enough for now!

Do not shave on the train. Get up earlier FFS.

Also, I do not need to hear your life story, which you like to share with your buddies at volume. You are not that interesting.

The swearing one really gets me, especially when there are children on the train - how dare you!

Also, the people who sit in the front seats with the areas for pushchairs and wheelchairs when a wheelchair user or parent with child gets on board. I saw a lady trying to fill a bottle with formula and feed her child whilst standing due to no one being arsed to move for her. I was quite vocal about my disgust. What's wrong with these people?

Ah buggies. Please don't park your buggy in the entrance to the aisle and then go and sit somewhere else entirely, thus rendering an entire section of the carriage unusable in the middle of rush hour.
And if you choose to do this, you lose the right to get sniffy when you come back for your buggy and find that it has been badly folded and stashed against the wall by an irate businessman.

Marie - that was prob me. Eight months pregnant with a baby in a buggy doing the one-handed bottle formula make-up on a packed bus every day.
Oh, the joy of a packed Arriva bus. It also had a regular shouter on it.

Disappointed to have only just found this thread, being a veteran of commuter hell threads.

Privet - I am with you on the people who sit in the eat NOT next to the window so that you have to clamber past them. Drives me bonkers. I too am in London Midland purgatory.

Plus could I add, when you approach the ticket barrier, could you please have you ticket actually ready? Don't stop dead in front of it, amid a heaving crowd, get your purse out and start fumbling through it...

And finally (for now), London Midland - please could you get rid of the announcement which goes "Will the senior conductor please contact the driver?". Makes me wonder what the hell is going on and want toget off at the next stop. In fact, get rid of all your onboard announcements. They are annoying.

this thread is rminding me why i'm loving maternity leave...

I like watching people putting their make-up on. It's like watching darts on tv.
Do people mind other people reading their newspapers over their shoulder? Especially if they are free newspapers?

This morning was quite good in a karmic way. I had to run for my bus and so was all hot and sweaty and having some sort of flush moment. I opened the 2 windows next to me as the heating was on full blast.

A couple of stops later a lady gets on and closes them all again without asking even though one of them was mine iyswim.

The another stop and a couple of builders get on who smell like they have had whisky for breakfast - I was having trouble with it but the closing-window lady must have been unable to breathe as one of them were sat right next to her. Hah I thought as she wrinkled up her nose in disgust.

She didnt bloody well open the window again though.

Of such irritating vignettes is commuting made up.

My contribution from packed Parisien metros :
If you have to cough, please turn your head away from me and cover your mouth.

If you have to cough again and again and again for 30 minutes please do not go into work - you have probably just infected hundreds of people.

When arriving at a station do not start pushing me and saying "excuse me" to get off - the train is packed. I cannot move anywhere until the doors open and I am getting off at this station anyway so won't let you push in front of me.

This one is for tourists - millions of people work in Paris. If you try to use a metro/RER at peak times with a giant suitcase do not be surprised if you can't fit on the train. Wait a bit longer (and try to avoid putting it on people's toes.)

To the guy last night with the huge bag and hockey sticks - stop hitting me with your bag! The train is not packed, I am sitting down and do not appreciate being hit on the head every 2 minutes.

You do not need to lean against posts - stand up straight and hold on with your hand and thereby stop crushing my hand.

Another one for tourists - when you get off the metro keep going. Do not stop abruptly and try to work out where to go. You will be walked over by everyone else trying to get off/on the metro.

And breathe. I hate commuting

When the tube is obviously packed and there is a train one minute behind do not ask me to move down.

Move off the escalators quickly so as not to cause a domino-style pile up.
If you are a tourist or have a child in a pushchair rush hour is not the place for you.

Have your Oystercard ready before you reach the barriers.

If you must take a wheeled suitcase, then walk in a straight line do not weave in and out.
If you are pregnant and need a seat - then ask for it. Commuters are on autopilot.

If you feel unwell whilst on the train then get off. Do not expect to stay on the train and hold up the whole network whilst they get a first aider.

If you wear flipflops then expect people to step on the back of them.
Feel better now!

How's this for an angry commuter the Peckham Terminator warning they are a bit angry if your of a delicate disposition www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D2waIvp265CM

Ah, a thread I can call home.

Most of my bugbears have been mentioned, but I would like to reiterate:

• wear deodorant. Particularly in summer, when it's hot, or I swear next time I end up with my nose squashed up against a smelly armpit, I will puke on you
• Particularly at rush hours, when everyone needs to get on the tube, move to make space for people. I know, you're very happy standing there, with miles of space in front of you, but wily commuters could probably shove about 100 of themselves in the space you're taking for one. Similarly, if you are stood in the middle, right in front of the tube door, in order to facilitate people getting off an on move. You may sometimes even have to get off! And get back on! It's not rocket science!
• TfL workers. When it is 8:30 in the morning, and trains are delayed because your colleagues are useless, and everyone's cramped and annoyed, you will not make friends saying things like "TfL workers should get their own special carriage". You will be lynched.

I had the leg-spredders on a long-haul flight. I was wedged between 2 of them.

They thought it was funny that for 12 hours my knees were crushed - I could not even bend down to collect my blanket that had fallen to my feet.

Their shoulders also encroached so far onto my seat I was unable to lean back.

So tilted forward - for 12 hours.

Trains don't seem so bad to me know.

Don't whistle. It's a fucking horrible noise!