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?

Don't diss the rush hour children. There is a little girl (Hannah I think her name is) who makes my morning commute a delight. And if her mum is reading this (regularly takes th 8:03 from Lewisham, then the Northern line to Goodge Street) Your child is a delight and have you had the new baby yet?

For the love of God, please, dear tourists on the Tube, do not walk slowly in packs down the corridors taking up the whole f'ing width. And please don't just STOP in the entrance way as soon as you get to the platform. Extraordinarily enough, all those other people behind you might want to get on to the platform as well.

Please don't pick your nose and leave it on the seat.

Also, please think of being in a packed train before you have garlic for breakfast.

1. I dont like travelling through the rush hour traffic with my winging tired baby, but I work, so I have to. I appreciate that you do o, so that's why I'm not a space invader.....however, that does not mean you canmstand over my buggy and hit her in the head with you or so important bag.

2. If I have to travel by tube durign said rush hour, be aware that I would rather stick pins in my eyes if it wasn't totally necessary, I will tell you I am getting off at the next stop so don't look at me like i've swallowed my baby whole in front of you when I attempt to get off, I gave you advance warning, if you don't move, I WILL ram your legs to move you

3. she doesn't mean to winge, she's just been at nursery since 8 and it's now 7, she's knackered and wants to go to sleep at her home and not on the bus....don't look at me like I'm doing it on purpose every time she shrieks....I hate the noise too and I'm her mother, but I cannot take another round of incy wincy spider!

4. to all the space invaders....fuck off i'm moving because of a phrase personal space not because i'm being considerate

ahhhhh, in with love out with the hate

please don't loudly chew gum like a cow on cud for the entire hour I have to share a train carriage with you in my sights.

Ban folding bikes from trains / tubes. They occupy as much space as an adult standing, they are easy to trip over and I frequently see 3 -4 in the same carraige.

The rider also occupys a two seats with their sad neon and lycra gear on and the other seat for their work clothes.

Grown men look ridiculous on what looks like a little girls bike.

Either get the train or cycle... make your mind up!

Rant over... sorry to anyone who actually rides these but keep them off the bloody train in rush hour.

No no no! You can't ban folding bikes. If you did I couldn't come to London and do my job and still be sane at the end of the day. They are the Lord's own invention (would never take one on the tube though - the whole point of them is so as to avoid the tube).

Morag - on the tube it is logical. I too have an uncanny knowledge of the exact location of the Victoria line doors!
However, on our local station, where the train never actually stops in the same place twice, it is just bizarre! The entire population of the platform finish up huddled together, apparently hell-bent on standing on the same 1 foot square spot....

Sorry MissM I have to disagree.

I travel on a packed over ground train with about 4 in every carriage clogging up the aisles and some areseholes put them just behind the doors so you trip over them getting on or off. Get them the hell off trains!

Well obviously I am not one of those arseholes . And you've got to admit, they're better than having a full size bike clogging up the aisles.

You can't take full size bikes on the train.

Some people are inconsiderate with them. So we'll ban everyone but you from using them on trains except you...deal?

Er, here's one:

If you are travelling through one of the deep underground stations with the really huge escalators, and you find yourself standing behind a woman you find attractive, I know it must be tempting (and the long ascent with everyone facing in the same direction gives you the opportunity) but please don't get your meat out and knock one out all over the back of her coat.

It's really not flattering.

And she will get some very odd looks when she takes said garment to the dry cleaners.

Thank you.

Thank you A1980. I appreciate it. For what it's worth I don't put my office clothes on the seat next to me and I don't wear lycra and I am fully aware that a folding bike does not make me look cool (but I still love mine).

I must confess to wearing an item of clothing that was just bad manners in rush hour, but I did only wear it a few times before I realised the error of my ways .
I was new to the Northern line, having had to give up my lovely moped due to being pregnant. I decided to wear my beautiful coat, after years of a biker jacket, it had these spots all over it made from long stitches.
Well, they caught on everything, mostly other peoples coats and bags, whilst they where giving me their seat, and then miss the empty seat just over there..... Whilst I apologised and tried to free them from my coat

I'm sure you aren't inconsiderate with it MissM :-)

But most of the people I have come across are!

If I'm sitting by the window and want to get off the bus, please GET UP when I say excuse me and don't just swivel your knees a fractionof a degree to let me squeeze past. Even if I wasn't quite fat it wouldn't be enough room and when I'm pregnant are you just having a larf?

if you really have to snog your OH, please don't suck your thumb between embraces

One to add to your list:

Please don't take offence and look at me like I'm a piece of crap when I politely but assertively ask you to move down inside the train carriage so that I and fellow commuters can get on!

Why do people make commuting soooooo difficult? We're all just trying to get somewhere!

Please don't look down your nose when me and ds3 pitch up next to you in first class that's only place could fit his wheelchair don't presume heis going to be a pita

this happened before but must admit was going to get of one of the guys turned round and said that he was impressed by ds3 behaviour so he had lpresummed

But on whole I rather travel on train with ds in his wheelchair when packed with commuters than at other times .Commuters tend to be mre helpfull

and whilst I wil have every sympathy with mums or dads with tired whingy grumpy children ,if I'm without mine I will offer grin of sympathy and then hide back inky boo. Time without kids is rare I do not want to spend whole journey playing with yours but if askedi don't mind watching if need nip to the toilet or if goi g tobuffet car but if you don't ask me don't shoot filthy looks when I get back with my drink and mutter about selfish people .I am not a mind reader

I live in Tourist Central so a lot of these drive me bonkers. I think tourists should have to undergo compulsory training before they're allowed on the Tube.

Tourists: For the love of God, please buy a weekly Oyster card so you don't all have to create enormous queues to buy a ticket in my local tube station every bloody day. Please don't buy a single tube journey with small change every time!

Don't stop to work out where to go next at the bottom/top of an escalator/just inside the tunnel/just outside the tube. Please check if it'd be quicker to walk, and if it is, please do!

If your suitcase is so enormous you can't actually physically manouvre it yourself, then under no circumstances should you be on public transport at rush hour. And also, you've definitely definitely brought too many clothes. Please take a taxi.

Oh and lastly, businessy people with those dastardly small wheely cases at Kings Cross, please be aware that if you change direction/stop suddenly, you trip up the person behind you.

Dear train companies,
Please stop putting all reserved seats in your quiet coaches. It means we're expected to work and be phoned up when travelling for work, and then get tutted at.

Dear incompetent company that books work train tickets,
See above. Sort something out.

And finally, Mrs Snotty-Voice at Clapham Junction, no I didn't decide to squeeze myself and year-old ds in a pushchair onto the 8.18 just for shits and giggles. Clearly you have the ability to ensure no hospital appointments are ever given before 10am, and not somewhere that requires going via both CJ and Victoria (both full of staircases and no lifts at all), but I don't. Ds is fine now, thank you.

See I find commuters beat tourists hands down if have to travel into London early with ds3 and his chair there always offering to help on of platforms mind that might be because till were of no one else is getting of

please oh please can you refrain from having a blazing row on your mobile phone to your boyfriend, we can hear every word particularly the bits about your sex life

Well, the whole folding bike thing would be solved if the trains designated a certain cab for them, say the very front or back.

I would love to add, please refrain from wearing too much cologne or perfume. I don't need to taste it.

I have, on occasion, to mention to the individual committing some infractions listed here and have said, "Really, you shouldn't directly piss off the person nearest you. You don't know what they're capable of." (Actually, the only saving grace I had in London was that being Canadian, when I spoke, people just thought I was American, so my comments usually fell on ears that took the advice like when people will not move down inside the train, and I would holler, "Please move down the train!" and people would move without a bat of an eye.) Funny.

If you and your friends are not planning to get the next train, do not block the open doors when it arrives and then look at me in astonishment when (after ignoring me saying excuse me)I push you out of the way and get on!