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?

Everyone looking forward to another week of joyus commuting then?

Well QueenSconetta, very nice man gets off Waterloo train from Hampshire way some mornings around 9am.

Sometimes bugbears of commuting, pale into insignificance !!!! Must admit, not often

QueenSconetta - already on my way!

I can't believe 8 pages and no one has mentioned people not taking their litter with them!!

Please don't leave (all of these in my memory): banana peels, apple cores, empty drinks bottles, empty (smelly) sandwich packets, half-eaten burgers with and without their wrappers, gum, sticky sweets, the remainder of your curry, vinegar crisp packets, iPhone packaging , et. al.

And definitely don't expect to place it behind you on the little shelf where the heating comes out and expect me not to tut or say something.

If I am near the glass wall on the tube, please do not take up the entire armrest when we are both reading the paper, you have 2 and I only have 1. Do not then say to me 'You only have to sit next to 1 person' when I ask you to give me some of it.

Do not hum along to your iPod, it's bad enough I can hear the song.

Please don't eat on public transport - the magic word is PUBLIC not private.

Please don't put your make-up on either - do some of you have no dignity?? I've even encountered a stupid tart painting her toenails on the train.

AND when you get off the train and are walking down the stairs PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not read your newspapers. Do you realise just how ridiculously dangerous that is to everyone else using the stairs?

Moos am afraid guilty of eating when travelling with kids there often eating something either on platform or on train sorry but think the noise of them complaining be far worse and we often do long journeys sometimes with barley time to catch trains

Roundthebend - If you want to teach your children manners then one of the basics is not eating in public. We never do we have to put up with it now - especially in public transport - it's disgusting and horrendously bad manners.

mm editing button well overdue.

I meant to say that we never did it when we were children so why do we have to put up with it now?

End of sermon!

If you want to teach your children manners then one of the basics is not eating in public.>>

ffs what a ridiculous comment

Restaurants are public places, cafes and bars are public places. If you are on public transport and travelling for many hours on trains and coaches, you may need to eat at some point.

Of course eating hot smelly food in a public place that is not designed for eating is inconsiderate but eating a cold sandwich or a snack on a bus or a train is NOT bad manners. People who are annoyed by it are plain mad

Ty bumbling

Moos you mean you never ate even a bag of crisps when you was out then ,

Funny enough my dc get complemented on their manners when were out and ds1 and ds2 jump out their seats for anyone without needing telling ,they don't do spitting either or swearing etc and not into stoping rubbish on floor neithet do I allow them to put feet on chairs

so I'm hardly think eating is crime of the decade your just have to sit elsewhere or put up I'm afraid

Because I think there's far more important manners to instill In them

Droping *

for your own amusement, wait till you are standing on a very crowded tube sandwiched next to your Significant Other. When he (or she) engages you in conversation, look at them blankly for a moment and reply "I beg your pardon? Do I know you?"
if they persist in talking, respond with "will you please leave me alone, I've been trying to get away from you since Piccadilly Circus"
Score ten points for any well-meaning passengers who intervene on your behalf.
Double points if the ensuing divorce proceeds amicably.

Another favourite is insisting DH sits on bus or train seat next to the window with you beside him. When he inevitably drops off to sleep as he is wont to do so on public transport, gently slip away and re-position yourself a few seats back directly behind.
Sit back and wait for the panic attack when he wakes up and thinks you've done a bunk.

I'm evil, me. (and, amazingly, still married)

Moos would you rather my kids were whining and whingeing and generally being irritating to all around them, or had a banana happily stuck in their gob? I think your rule should apply to eaters of Macdonalds and Burger King burgers only.

When I am happily reading away on public transport, one of the few times of the day when I actually have time to myself, I do not want you to try and convert me to Christianity, thank you very much. I just want to read my book.

Please please please do not pick your nose, then clean out your ear, then wipe resulting mix on the pole in the bus, and then repeat. It's disgusting.

Do not come onto the metropolitan/circle/district/hammersmith and city line (I can never figure out which tubeline I'm actually on) and make an arse of yourself. For e.g., complaining loudly that you don't have a seat, encouraging your child to do a poo in the carriage and then calling the man, who kindly asked you to quieten down, a paedophile. You just make yourself look like an idiot.

If you work in a job that brings you into contact with slebs, here's a tip: the rest of the carriage doesn't care. So keep your 'I'll get our people to speak to Jamie's people' conversations to yourself please.

Please do not swing your large pointy umbrella so close to my head when you are putting it into the overhead rack. I know I am small but I am actually still there.

Also ticket lady, would it kill to not be such a mardy soandso for once? You are getting paid after all. The majority of your colleagues manage not to be openly hostile to customers so may be you could give it a go? I doubt your face will fall off if you crack a smile.

Haven't read the whole thread, but wrt no.4 in QS's list, may I suggest an amendment:

If you attempt to barge on to the train before all the people who are getting off have done so, they are at liberty to deliver a sharp kick to your shins/stick out their foot and trip you over.

Also, as an aside to all the men who sit on the bus with their knees at right angles... I don't honestly believe your cock is that big.

If I am attempting to read work stuff on my ipad (sorry - I succumbed to the temptation but it is so lovely and shiny!) after being too lazy to do it the night before, please at least try to pretend you are not blatantly reading my emails. If you cannot stop yourself from reading over my shoulder, it might be an idea if you didn't give yourself away by going "ooh an Ipad. Do you like it?" before reaching over and wiggling your sweaty man-finger on the screen.

teenagers who sing along to songs on there phone drive me mad, there is alaways one who thinks she is christina aguilera and doesv that warble thing , its the bus not the x factor , please dont strike a conversation when im reading a book , bus time is the only precious bit of time i get to read ,
once a man in the lower seat in front of me ate his kebab with his bare hands then wiped the grease on the back of his seat all over my knees i was too shy at the time to say anything .

If there are seats available, sit in them please. Do not all stand, crammed down at the front of the bus, making the driver and new passengers think there are no seats left, and creating a huge bottle neck which you then act all polite and charitable about moving slightly at each stop to let people get off.

If there are no seats available, do not stand near the front seats, blocking the way for everybody else and refusing to let anybody make eye contact with you, forcing everybody else to cram down at the front.

Do not sit on the outside seat and wait until somebody has to ask you to move over before making a great show of politely moving over. It isn't polite to make anybody have to ask.

Please stand at the very front of the platform and engage the drivers eyes at least 3 minutes before your stop! Because that is what my 11 yr old DS has to do from now on. Four times now, he has missed his stop because he wasn't standing exactly in the right spot, having rang the bell. One driver asked him to say please when he asked to get off!

Does this mean all passengers have to do this?

Well done National Express!

Re bus travel.

Is there a sizeable city anywhere on earth that operates a system whereby drivers routinely give change to passengers?

We wonder this every year in Edinburgh as the tourists get on, wave a tenner at the driver and act surprised that he does not give change.

They've also started waving credit cards :)

I've just read the whole thread with increasing glee as I realise that no-one has mentioned people who take their smelly dogs to work cos that's me, that is!

And there I was worrying that my fellow passengers hated me, and yet the dog-haters of mumsnet haven't even mentioned it.

Or maybe none of you lot use the East London Line

Oh yeah, and another one: please do not bring your great big smelly dog with you at rush hour. I don't like dogs in parks, I like them even less at 7am in the morning.

I'm soooo... happy I don't need to commute any more since getting made redundant 3 weeks after my baby was born! 2 trains and a bus with 4 hours a day travel time was actually commuter hell!!!