What’s the most annoying person who’s encountered on public transport?

[zaraaraz]

On Friday I had a woman loudly demand a seat, the man sat at the table gave up his seat for her.

She then told the woman sitting there that she was glad as had studying to do, told her what she was studying (learning a language) and that she was so advanced she was taking her first and second year at the same time.

She then proceeded to talk into her phone loudly in the other language making voice notes on her phone.

Backfired when the traffic jam cleared suddenly and she got left behind grin Apparently the driver wasn't her new best mate after all.
Love it!

Years ago going to Paris with my mother, I was about 14 and my mum wouldn't fly so we had done train to dover, night in a b and b, ferry and then train from Calais.

We sat opposite each other at a table, behind me was a group of obnoxious English students who were drunk or high, very, very loud.

Opposite them was a couple of old French men who were not impressed with the students.

Suddenly a half eaten apple wit my head and bounced into my face.

My mother, who wasn't one for confrontation normally, was out of her seat in an instant, telling them they were a disgrace to their country, should be ashamed of themselves, the apple could have broken my glasses what did they think the French men were thinking etc.

Elderly French gentlemen were very approving of my mother, we couldn't understand what they were saying but we did hear the name, "Margert Thatcher".

We didn't hear another word from them.

Much much later on a BA flight the flight attendant was making the announcement about who the pilot was, who was in first, business and ... in cattle, I mean world traveller..."

On intercity train, parents proceed to give their each of their small children a recorder to play with. The noise was excruciating.

Woman on her phone dry shaving her legs whilst sat on the platform bench, waiting for train. Yet another person clipping their nails. Many a pissed up bloke who thinks they’re an Adonis and tries to ‘banter’ / drunken chat up which quickly turns to ‘who do you think you are, you ugly c*?’ When you fail to engage. I remember one being turfed off the bus by the Driver but can’t recall any other occasion where someone came to my aid.

Many perves with raincoats / Jackets. Tubes used to have more ‘arm’ dividers between seats and many a time bloke would get on, place coat over seat and attempt to rummage in my lower regions. Being a typical 11 (till about 14) year old, instead of yelling the Carriage down and elbowing them in their nuts I’d just move.

I would love to have been that girl (urban myth?!) who having her bum grappled on packed Tube grabbed offending hand, held it aloft and yelled “Has anybody lost a hand? Because I’ve just found this one on my arse!”.

I got on the tram once (in a quite posh area in Basel) at ten to eight in the morning and a smelly drunk man and his dog got on behind us. The man was drinking from a can of beer. The dog looked like a cross between a Rottweiler and some kind of hound of hell. It was enormous. It kept barking and whining at him and he kept swearing at him until, 10 minutes into the journey, he relented and gave the dog a go at the beer. This obviously didn't agree with the dog because it then started farting unspeakably smelly farts. Luckily the tram travellers of Basel expressed in the strongest terms possible that they didn't approve of this behaviour i.e. there was quite a lot of tutting and sighing and someone even rolled their eyes.

Got on a train for work and had loads of stuff to do so really wanted a table. The carriage was pretty empty. There were two 4 seaters with a table. One empty, but the forward facing seats had no window (I don't do well facing back on long journeys, and it was a scenic journey so wanted the view), and another set that had a Very Important Business man on them on his own.

I sat on the forward facing seat opposite him. He huff and puffs and eventually says, "the train is practically empty, why are you sitting next to me". I nearly launched into an explanation, but he was so entitled, I just said, Because I choose to.

He very noisily packs up his stuff and moves to the other table, tutting as he went. Next stop the carriage fills, mum and two boisterous kids get on and sit beside him I get 3 people on laptops wanting to work.

I smirked my face off for a good 10 minutes, and openly guffawed when one of the kids spilt a drink all over the table.

Ooh, that reminds me - not nearly as bad but something Ive smarted over for years. I was on a 3 1/2 hour train journey home from a work meeting (having travelled 3 1/2 hours to get to said meeting at the crack of dawn). Train arrived in Birmingham (not my stop) in rush hour. 3 women came and sat at my table for 4 - absolutely fine, no problem. But they then proceeded to shout and cackle loudly to each other for the next hour till 2 of them got off. I dug out my headphones to watch something on my iPad. As soon as only one of them was left she leaned over and asked me snottily to turn off my iPad because the noise was disturbing her! Note, it could only have been a slight bleed of noise, as someone else in the carriage confirmed after she’d got off. I was too staggered to say anything!

Not most annoying but heard someone just before Xmas talking about their dealer not getting them their drugs on time. They ended with "well he's not getting an Xmas card this year" 🤣

On a GWR train out of Paddington a child of 8 or so pulled most of the seat reservation tickets out of the seats. Parents didn’t do anything. It caused chaos on subsequent stops.

Man sat in someone’s reserved seat on a busy train. He refused to move even when the mother asked him to as her son is disabled. Son had sensory issues and got very upset at someone other then his DM sitting opposite him. Only then did the idiot move.

@ItPearl Sorry even if the bus stops right beside me and they're further down, if someone was there before me I always signal for them to get on first. Ten times out of ten that person just waves me on. I think it's pretty rude just to hop on.

Yes to playing iPads, music etc without headphones.

Loud conversations. I don't know how people do it, I hate speaking on public transport in case people overhear.

There was a girl once having a loud flirty faux argument with 'Tommy'. 'Oh stop it Tommy, giggle giggle, you're just trying to wind me up Tommy giggle giggle, I am SOOO annoyed at you Tommy giggle'. I could see everyone else was feeling the same at listening to this. Was tempted to turn around and take the phone and say 'she'll call you back Tommy'.

Generally people who make a noise - loud conversations or playing music so loudly that you can hear it through the earphones. Especially in quiet carriages.

And the person who let their dog poo in the train a few years ago and didn't bother to clear it up [green]

DH, DC1, DC2 and myself had prebooked a table seat. All four of us were reading. The train was full.

Two older women got on without booked seats, and realised it was standing room only. Our DCs, aged about 14 and 12, offered them their seats.

The two women then spent the rest of the journey complaining that everything is wrong with society today. Children have no manners. Reading is a lost art. Young people never read books. This despite the fact that they were sitting on seats given up by book reading young people.

Then, as the train was passing some fields, DC1 said "Look! Pheasants!" and the two women claimed he'd said "Look! Peasants!" and upbraided him for his rudeness. There were no people visible from the train, just the fields, and birds, but apparently it was more likely that he had described an invisible farmer as a peasant than that he'd described a pheasant as a pheasant.

Flight home from New York. Woman and her partner in row in front of me. She kept loudly complaining that my knees were in the back of her chair (I’m 5 foot 1, they weren’t touching her chair). Flight attendant came over and explained that my legs were not touching the chair and that she should put her chair up anyway because we were about to take off. She continued to argue with the flight attendant while the husband has his head in his hands muttering to himself.

Flight takes off and she immediately puts her chair back and starts glaring at me. She continues to rant about my legs. Flight attendant comes back again and tells her to put her chair back up as food is about to be served and to basically stop causing a scene. Continued arguing from woman who is now shouting at me while her partner keeps saying “please stop!”. People on the plane are all watching. I just quietly explain over and over that nothing is touching her chair and even offer to put my legs in the aisle if it helps.

Dinner is served and I have a glass of wine. I put it on my tray and she peers over, gives me a smile and then abruptly flings her chair back causing both my wine and food to spill onto me. I burst into tears and flight attendant comes back. They apologise to me and explain they are looking for a new seat for me and she properly loses her shit because she thinks I’m getting an upgrade. Her partner turns to her and shouts “I’m sick of this! I’m fed up with you. Why do you always do this?! She’s not touching you”. People are all staring at us and standing up to get a good look. They continue to argue for the entire flight home and when we land he rushes off the plane without her. Last time I saw him he was at the taxi rank getting into a cab without her

Not worst behaviour but a lady who got on listening to music very loudly.
After a few minutes someone went up to her and offered her some earphones.
"Thank you," she said. "I forgot mine and couldn't think what to do."
I heard several people offer muttered suggestions of what she could do. 🤣

Gosh that sounds horrible! We once had a flight to Los Angeles with 2 families and their 5 small children. The children proceeded to run around the plane shrieking for what felt like the whole flight as the parents popped their seats back and drank wine. The poor staff were chasing after the little darlings...

The racist drunks were the worst, thankfully the driver had the balls to confront them and chuck them off.

And another - horrifying for DC1, but fun for the rest of us. DH, DC1, DC2 and myself in a table seat. DC1 was about 18 and in an aisle seat. An elderly woman sat across from us and asked for help - her eyesight was poor and she asked us to check that she had the correct railcard, and not one of her storecards. DC1 was nearest and checked it for her. She had one of those cartons of juice with a straw attached and asked DC1 to put the straw in for her. Which he did. Her walking stick slid onto the floor. DC1 picked it up.

She then told him he was lovely (true!) and told him that girls would be desperate to meet a nice lad like him, but he had to be careful and not sleep around, in case he ended up with a paternity case and had to spend the rest of his life paying for the result of casual sex. He should always use condoms, and not just take a woman's word for it that she was on the pill.

DC1 was

I think I’ve met all of these tossers at one time or another. So clearly they are types and not a one off.

It’s just rudeness and entitlement.

On a flight back from Greece I was sitting alone in the window seat as my husband and children were in the row in front. It was his turn to look after them so I was looking forward to a peaceful journey.

There was a lad of about 8 next to me with his father on the far side, who spent the entire 3 hour flight saying loudly to his child

“ No Declan you can’t sit next to the window , it’s that lady’s seat. Yes Declan I know you can’t see out the window but that lady is sitting there. I know you always sit next to the window Declan but you can’t today. “.

Declan hardly said a word BTW he just watched his phone and played games like any other 8 year old.

I was on a train from London to Exeter many years ago with my five friends. We arrived at our reserved table seats to find two blokes sitting there working on their laptops. We politely told them they were in our seats. Rather than move, they gestured towards the non-table seats and said "can you sit somewhere else as we're working?". We replied "no, we reserved these seats so we could sit together".

The CFs!

Vile woman on BA flight from JFK to Manchester many years ago.
She was sat behind us and went to sleep with a blanket covering her seatbelt. This despite several announcements mentioning that if you go to sleep make sure your seat belt is visible so cabin crew don't have to disturb you to check it is fastened.
Of course there was turbulence and seat belt sign was on and off repeatedly.
She swore so badly at the crew,words I'd never even heard before. She was horrible.
Then she got up and had a stand up row in the galley with the senior member of staff.
Next thing she stomped back to her seat and every time any member of staff walked past she shouted abuse.
This went on for the whole flight. Several passengers told her to shut up.
When we landed the police came on and she was cuffed and taken off still screaming abuse and trying to kick the police officers.

@Lerram

And another - horrifying for DC1, but fun for the rest of us. DH, DC1, DC2 and myself in a table seat. DC1 was about 18 and in an aisle seat. An elderly woman sat across from us and asked for help - her eyesight was poor and she asked us to check that she had the correct railcard, and not one of her storecards. DC1 was nearest and checked it for her. She had one of those cartons of juice with a straw attached and asked DC1 to put the straw in for her. Which he did. Her walking stick slid onto the floor. DC1 picked it up.

She then told him he was lovely (true!) and told him that girls would be desperate to meet a nice lad like him, but he had to be careful and not sleep around, in case he ended up with a paternity case and had to spend the rest of his life paying for the result of casual sex. He should always use condoms, and not just take a woman's word for it that she was on the pill.

DC1 was

😂😂

on a bus in malta a possibly drunk woman was complaining and almost shouting at my dd to get up so she could sit down, and then when my dd wouldnt move and just froze, she continued to go on and on about it to other passenger nearby despite ds standing up and moving for her instead. She was mostly speaking maltese with a bit of english.
I tried to get dd to move, but shes autistic and she absolutely freezes and wont communicate when under stress, and tbh if the woman hadnt immediately started being a dick about it we would have probably got further. I did end up telling her to stop it and that we were here first and to pick on someone else as not all disabilities are visible.
I was really worried that I wouldnt be able to get dd on a bus again

So many.

Woman eating off sushi on a bus (so smelly!).

Man crawling on the floor trying to lick women's feet.

Guy on the tube who spent the entire journey physically shoving his entire body weight into me as strongly as he could (I spent the entire trip shoving back as hard as I could).

Bus driver who switched off the engine when a group of learning disabled people got on because he refused to transport "their type." They weren't causing noise or disruption. He didn't even explain why he'd switched the engine off until someone finally went and asked, so we sat there for about 15 minutes because everyone assumed it was engine failure! I wrote a letter of complaint to TFL about him.

The worst was when my mother and I were on a train coming back from saying goodbye to my dying grandmother. A group of extremely posh people got on, coming home from a christening, so drunk they could barely stand. The most drunk woman threw herself onto our table, smashed my sunglasses, and was drunkenly crying and demanding we listen to her problems. They wouldn't leave us alone so I leapt up and tried to pull the security cord, and two of the slightly less drunk women grabbed me and actually fractured my arm trying to stop me from reaching it. When the guard came he claimed he had no power to remove them and his only option would be to stop the train in the nearest station (tiny, rural, 10pm!), wait for the local police to arrive, and then send all of us to the nearest police station. Which would me us being stranded in the middle of nowhere overnight.

Travelling to work on the tube one morning when I was pregnant with twins, all the seats were taken. A man stood up & offered me his seat but before I had the chance to sit down a young girl leapt into it and sat there smiling smugly at me.

Was too shocked to say anything but a very nice woman offered me her seat instead.

The young girl seemed totally oblivious to the dirty looks she was getting.

My worst (although there's some competition):

Boarded a suburban train and the carriage was half empty. No single seats, so sat in the window seat of a two-seater. Mobile rang right as I found the seat, and I was distracted and left my laptop case on the aisle seat next to me while talking. It was a work call, so took a little time.

A few stops later, a man came and sat in the aisle seat - on top of my laptop bag. I squeaked something about please get up - my bag is on the seat and he smirked and told me that I shouldn't be taking up two seats, then. I remember feeling embarrassed, like the train must have filled up and I didn't notice. (I agree it's annoying when people take up extra seats when there are none to spare .) But no; there were still loads of empty seats, including a free two-seater directly in front of ours.

Fortunately he did condescend to raise his posterior and let me get the bag. I was on a work trip overseas so I would have been screwed if the laptop was seriously damaged. (Luckily it wasn't).