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?

Dear fellow commuter, much as I enjoy reading your romantic/sexual text messages as I am standing near your seat, I find that it makes me snort somewhat thereby causing embarrassment to everyone else.

Just an update, DS2 was right by the platform to get off this afternoon, and .... the bus driver failed to stop, again. He had 2 heavy bags [one being games kit]. I think I will email National Express.

Love this thread. I'm no longer subjected to the hell of the London commute but in memory of it: if you have a stiffie please try and disguise the fact certainly don't rub against me, just because I'm standing next to you doesn't mean I find you attractive it means there is no where to escape to!!!

Do it melika. We sheep have to try and bite back now and then.
Driver sounds like a right bully.

So glad I'm not the only intolerant one of the aggressive sitter-downers. I wonder sometimes if I'm the only one who notices.

Standing on the right thing: it should be a requirement of anyone entering the country as a tourist, immigrant, asylum seeker, whatever to have an hour's lecture at Heathrow/Stanstead/Gatwick/Luton/St Pancras immigration on escalator etiquette.

Someone huffed and puffed at me as I was walking down the escaltor once, seven months pregnant, right side packed so no room to move aside. At the bottom I turned right round, smiled sweetly and said 'I'm sorry I'm too pregnant for you'. Pure satisfaction.

When I choose a spot on the platform at random, do not all come and gather round me in a cosy huddle. I do not have any secret knowledge about where the train doors will finish up.

"hand-pole warfare"

"I am 8 months' pregnant. If you refuse to let me hold onto the pole I WILL fall over."

Worked.

I know you are tall and I am short.
I know we are standing really rather too close for comfort.
But this does not permit you to rest your newspaper on my head.
I am human, not lectern.

Please don't think it is acceptable to pluck out your chin hairs using tweezers, a hand mirror and a look of intense concentration at 8.45 on the west bound central line from South Woodford eeuw!

Before no2 came along I used to commute with No 1.

Experienced the best and worst in commuters for a kid who in 2 yrs cried three times on the tube. Bloody amazing!

He did come out wiht some classics though:

Literally pushed off a seat as I went to sit down with no 1 by a woman - no 1 pipes up - "lady you are rude"

To the farter on the train -
" Mum Mum poo smell"
-do you need the toilet
" no someone done fart"

• have you farted - say excuse me" (there was the smell from hell spreading down the carriage) " not me, me no smell that bad - that man did it"

Andto the whingers who moan about commuting with a child and mumble under your breath about bad mothers - weill you would whinge if I sat at home on benefits and you whinge of I work - so go get a life and if the male wanker I married and trusted had not screwed me over I would not be a single Mum working my butt off, not claiming a benefit and providing for my kids with no input from tosshead or the state.

And another...the 'anonymity' of commuting in London does not make you invisible...

I can see you picking your nose/scab/pulling god knows what out of your hair and nonchalantly dropping it in the carriage.

Please don't be annoyed with me when I stare and tut.

That last one just reminded me of these:

Please do not brush your teeth on the bus! I appreciate that you might be running late but I do not want you spitting while sitting on the seat next to me! At least it was into a flask I guess

Do not pick your nose then stick the resulting goo onto the seat in front of you. It is vile. This was not a child either!

And a general one:

For god sake use deodorant in the morning! We might be treated like sardines on public transport but that does not mean you have to smell like one.

Whilst I don't mind exchanging brief pleasantries, please don't try and engage me in conversation for the full hour's journey. (Especially if you are a slightly the worse for wear late middle-aged man.) My commute is my child-free time and I earmark the time for working sleeping and reading. Oh, and, no, I don't want your business card.

And, to South West Trains, what's with all the announcements? It is particularly not necessary to have 5 announcements in the 5 min journey between Winchester and Micheldever.

Katisha - when the announcement comes on, "Would the senior conductor please contact the driver?" it usually indicates major problems - the driver has locked himself out of the cab at Leighton Buzzard while he nipped out to get himself a coffee, the train has broken down (again), or some fool has hit that damn bridge yet again, points failure at Bletchley or another suicide at Harrow and Wealdstone. Oh, or some fecker has nicked the cables at Hanslope again.

It's recorded in a slightly fraught tone, which always indicates to me, get yer arse here mate, how do we break this one to them?

Thank you so much for this thread. It has reminded me that I did the right thing in not returning to my city job after my maternity leave.

Most of the horrors have alreadey been mentioned but also:

Please when standing behind me on the tube in the crush, do not use my back and shoulders as a leaning post for your paper in which to allow you to complete your crossword.

When blowing your nose please ensure you take your stinky filthy snotty tissues with you and not squish them down the side of the seat.

All this has reminded me why I don't miss commuting into London on the train, and I shan't be rushing back any time soon.

But when I do travel on a train now I am struck by how many very loud, shrill, coarse young women need to bellow/witter/cackle into the phones for the entire journey with TMI about their social/love lives. Very very annoying.

Do not ring your wife on the Eurostar and drawl loudly,

"Darling I'm near Ashford, I'm going to need my purple shirt and onyx cufflinks"

[Oh I was so tempted ....]

If you've drunk so much you feel nauseous and need help standing, please do everyone a favour and don't get on a packed train. It really is cold comfort that you'd been drinking only the finest Shiraz when it's been regurgitated into the hair of the first 20 people in the carriage.
Don't give me filthy looks and tut at me when I have to take my DCs on the rush hour train. Failing that, why don't you ring DS's consultant and tell her she should hold her clinic later in the day, regardless of how many operations she has to perform, so that my kids' presence on the only train I could get to be there on time doesn't offend you.
Don't let your children run around naked and piss on the floor. And then don't shout racist abuse to the people who move to avoid being covered in said piss.
Oh and wash. Please. It's really not difficult.

Only put on Facebook & Twitter (Information and photos) that you'd feel happy sticking up on a billboard in the middle of a busy town centre...with neon lights and arrows directing people to....

All too often people regret what they 'shared'...but unlike a piece of paper that can be ripped up and thrown away... once you post to the WWW.Internet.com.... who knows who will do whatever with your info.

MrsSchadenfreude we evidently share the same journey...
They shuffle your list and read out whichever comes up first don't they? And they really need to sort out those points at Bletchley.
Soon be time for leaves on the line...

annec 555 - if you get a regular tube, have a look at where the line is most worn out.
This is usually where the doors open

It does only work in certain station though.
It makes me feel very smug when it works.

Can I just say that I cough all the time but it is an asthmatic cough not a germy one (if anyone is on the southwest trains into waterloo)

Don't lean on the arm rest bewteen 2 seats - I see this as a barrier between us, not a comfort rest for you

I always hope a woman sits next to me on my coomute, 9 times out of 10 they know how to commute with manners and aren't hoisting their massive ego around with them

Oh yeah and just because you're too hot because you've run all the way to the station whilst wearing a massive coat doesn't mean you can open all the windows on the carriage when there's a foot of snow on the ground and the train heating's broken. Or that you can complain to the rest of the people on said carriage when they shut them again because they're bloody freezing.