To think that if someone elderly gets on a busy bus...

[NotaStatistic]

...they should not expect a seat?!?

I would of course give up a seat for someone elderly or less able than me but should they think they're entitled to a seat just because they're old especially if they get on bus which already has people standing?!?

Your views please

I was on the bus yesterday. It was fairly busy. Everyone was sat down but there weren't anymore seats left. Got to the next stop and no one got off but an old man with 2 walking sticks got on.

I'd say 75% of the people on the bus were under 50 as it was the bus that got to the next big town just before 9. I am 25 weeks pregnant and have a large bump and I also had 3yo DS2 sat on my knee.

I was the only person that offered him my seat. Everyone else looked out of the windows or got out their phones. The bus driver refused to move until someone else got up and gave him a seat. He also said everyone should be ashamed of themselves.

It was only about 5 minutes until we got to the stop that the bus pretty much emptied.

My issue is that often the buses by us ARE full to bursting with OAPs (the free pass thing really took off in our posh suburbs!!) and often I am the ONLY person on the entire bus who has actually paid for a ticket - and yet STILL my ingrained sense of right and wrong makes me stand - and internalise the bitterness ....

Yay-go bus driver Kayzr.

sparkling

kayzr well done the bus driver. And yes, those other passengers should be ashamed of themselves but we all know they won't be. Selfish swines.

Kayzr That is bad someone else should have offered him a seat thank god for your nice driver.

What amuses me is the whole looking out of window, reading papers, rustling in handbags. Why bother you can't suddenly start acting like you haven't noticed OAP, Disabled person pregnant woman get on.

The underground is quite funny for that. Last time I went to London a pregnant lady got on and almost the entire coach of sat down people got out newspapers. It was an elderly lady that offered her seat up but pg lady refused.(I was already stood up)

"Just that in my experience I find that the older generation expect to get on a bus first (regardless of queue system) and expect a seat regardless of whether that is possible for them."

Goodness. I am happy to say I don't know many like that. But I don't use buses very often. Maybe all the miserable self-centred old buggars hang about bus stops all day.

Ive seen them barge past people to get on first or try to get on when im getting off with buggy and then refuse to step back off the bus so I can get out.

I spend a lot of my working life on trains, buses and Tubes [dreams wistfully of quiting the commuting rat race] and I rarely come across the miserable old git stereotype that is being touted here.

I have NEVER heard a old person demand a seat. And when they do get offered a seat they are invariably very polite and thankful for the gesture.

I would be that person looking out of the window.

I no longer offer seats to the elderly. I cant be arsed with the earful of abuse I have got.

Never a smile. Never a thanks.

The most I ever got in turns of actual speech has been stuff like
"Do I look this old?" followed by cat bums face. or
"How rude, suggesting I am not able to stand!"
and the like.

I hate being made to feel bad and embarrassed just because I tried to be kind.

On the other hand, having gone through two pregnancies and never been offered a seat.
Having been on buses with a baby and a toddler, and never offered a hand. Why should I bother?

The WORST experience I have had on a bus was once I had to take my oldest to a hospital appointment. He was 3. He fell asleep in the seat of the bus. I had the baby in the pushchair, and I tried to lift both buggy and sleeping toddler off the bus at my stop. The bus was full of able bodied people under the age of 50. Not ONE person offered to help me with the buggy. When my sleeping toddler (whom I could not manage to wake, he had iron deficient aenemia and was very sleepy) lost a shoe of his foot in the struggle to get everything off the bus, people were actually laughing. I had to get the buggy out, still holding toddler, shout for the bus driver to wait while I put the buggy outside as I had to come back in to pick up a shoe. He waited, glared at me. People were standing looking at the shoe on the floor, not ONE person bent down to pick up the shoe and hand it to me. I had to come back in, bend down, still carrying a sleeping toddler, with the buggy outside the bus, with people still giggling.

I hate people. I really do. People are nasty shits. Mostly.

But, OP, please bear in mind the fact that some people are nice and polite, and some people aren't. On the whole, age doesn't change that.

Though, having said that, there might be a vicious circle involved - I mean, some older people may have found that if they are the last ones on to a busy bus, younger and fitter people who are seated may not offer them their seats. So the older person then may think, 'Well, if no one's going to help me out, I need to get on the bus first to ensure I get a seat.' So they barge past to get on first.

Also, some older people can be a bit anxious and worry that the bus might pull away before they are on or off it properly (my mother got dreadfully anxious like this as she got older, though tbh I don't recall her ever elbowing her way to the front of a queue; she just fretted about it very audibly).

^

Quint, that's horrible. Please believe me - there are some nice people out there, though! Have met some of them while struggling with elderly, fretful mother on public transport. And she was always most profuse in her thanks to anyone who helped her/us. Hope you get to meet a few nicer people soon!

Princess, I meet nice and courteous people out in traffic daily, drivers letting me in on the roads with a smile and a nod. Drivers giving way when maneuvering through narrow bendy roads with cars parked.

I am thankful that I don't have to use the bus more than a couple of times a year. My mental health could not cope with any more!

You have a slightly weird bus obsession, OP.

Was bumping the buggy thread not enough?

I didn't mean to bump the other thread I don't notice how old last post was.

oh come on, you bumped a thread that had last been poste on in Novemeber. and you didn't notice

NotaStatistic I'm thinking of saving up and buying you a bus, then you can have it all to yourself and not have to worry about all these pesky elderly/disabled people that are trying to stop you having a seat.

No I didn't. I don't mind giving up my seat and I do it all the time. I also by a pass so If I have to get off the bus I don't have to pay twice.

Anyone can bump an old thread, especially if it's to do with a subject close to your heart.

How close to your heart can buses possibly be?

Quint (not meaning to pick on you, but your post made me think about it), personally, as a pedestrian, I find a lot of drivers really inconsiderate. If I had a pound for every time a driver has ignored me on a pedestrian crossing, or failed to signal that they are turning when I am trying to cross a side road - yadda yadda, writes letter to Daily Telegraph, etc.

Well if you are happy to give up your seat to elderly people, and fold your buggy when a wheelchair gets on, then I don't understand what the problem is?!

Umm, kungfu, I don't know; I was just trying to be charitable. Perhaps OP takes buses a lot and just gets fed up with behaviour she sees daily.

Princess - with you its drivers but with me its pedestrians.

At my train station car park I often have to give way to pedestrians who expect me to stop so that they can leisurely cross the access road.