People who watch stuff on their phones on public transport without headphones and audio at full volume. Special circle in hell.

[Thepeopleversuswork]

Surely penalty fares should be brought in for this or perhaps bus/train drivers should be given greater enforcement powers. I find it absolutely breathtaking that anyone thinks this is acceptable behaviour.

I see teenagers do it all the time and while I don't think its acceptable its the kind of thing I expect teenagers to do so I usually turn a blind eye. But in the past two days I've had two separate grown adults, both women, both comfortably into their 30s, one with children, doing it on two different London buses. One was watching Loose Women (or equivalent). The other (the one with the kids) was watching a load of different musical clips in (I think) Turkish so loudly that when my DD and I went to the top deck to get away from it we could still hear it as clearly as if we were in the same room. There must have been 30 people on the bus and every single person was subjected to this at unbelievably high volume. I eventually asked her to turn it down and she said something rude to me and carried on.

Just.... how have people been brought up that they think this is behaviour that everyone else should put up with?

Completely agree. I really don't understand how anyone can think this is OK.

The slight variation is when people's sole planned form of entertainment for their toddlers and young children on plane and train journeys is a tablet with no headphones.
Cue Bluey at full volume for several hours.

It's all dreadful.
Just constant tinny noise.

People talking on video calls without headphones as well, with the sound blasting out of the phone.

Completely agree.

There’s never a need for it. It’s just antisocial.

Yes transport and establishment should have clear rules that it’s not ok.

Everyone has headphones ffs. Just astonishing selfishness.

I cannot imagine who has voted ‘unreasonable’! It is incredibly anti-social, on a par with owners who allow their dog to endlessly bark whilst they are at home, ignoring it, or parents who allow their children to scream (not shouting/excited noise, that’s lovely to hear), proper full on tantrum screaming (neurodivergence aside, obviously!) for hours in the garden.

I was in the quiet coach on the train on a long journey once, two children without headphones playing games on their iPads. I understand you need to entertain little ones, but not noisily in the quiet coach on a half empty train when booking a normal coach might have been a better idea.

Ditto for the idiots who can't hold a phone up to their ear anymore and shout at it on loud speaker (and then generally end up lifting it up to their ear anyway to hear the response)

Totally agree! To all of the above I like to add people who play loud music in their garden/ parked car, for the whole road to hear

I had my baby abroad and where I delivered, you share your room with another woman, no curtain.

She listened to videos of her children playing the recorder and South American soap operas at full volume at 3 am. She was absolutely lovely though, so I didn't say much at the time but it was odd!

Oh my god, yes.

They hold the phone up to mouth level and shout into it anyway!

Yes to penalty fares

I don't think penalty fares are harsh enough.

I think the offending electronics should be immediately destroyed with a lump hammer.

Society is disintegrating when anyone thinks this is even vaguely okay.

If Dante was to write Inferno today they would definitely be in there.

This is where being a teacher helps. First they get “the look” and then the teacher voice comes out… my family squirm, but I don’t care!

I will cut people a bit of slack with small kids. Yes it’s highly irritating but I can understand that a two year old may have a tantrum if s/he doesn’t want to wear headphones.

But adults FFS. You can buy a pair of headphones for less than a tenner.

I do wonder if it’s a cultural thing: I feel like some cultures are more tolerant of ambient noise than others. Some people seem very nonplussed by tolerating other people’s noise and others find it severely intrusive. But wouldn’t you just err on the side of non pissing off everyone else in the carriage?

Totally agree OP. Had this last week, both grown adults. So antisocial.

In Madrid the metros have signs up telling people to use their headphones. We really need them.

Completely agree.

Can we have a special place for people who do it in restaurants or people who let their kids do it too

Can we have an extra-special place in hell for the people doing karaoke to drill music on the 5.22AM train to Gatwick?

and at the Centre of Hell instead of it being the bog standard devil it would be Peppa.

Totally agree, dickheads the lot of them.

Video calls are just as bad, that hardly ever happened before Covid.

YADNBU op. And no slack from me for parents of kids either. Listen/watch with headphones or find some other way to exist. If your kid is being a bother - interact with them, encourage them to look out of the window/give them a sticker book or something. Dont drive everyone around you crazy.

Can I ask the person who voyed YABU - why? Do you play loud music on public transport? If so why are you such an entitled dickhead? Don’t you care how disruptive it is?

Oh god, people who come in to the office and have Teams meetings at their desk with no headphones. Gross misconduct in my view.

100%. And people who blast out loud music while riding a bicycle. When did that become a thing? Ah lovely peaceful walk by the river, I think I’ll ride down here with a ghetto blaster on.

Yes please.

Stick them there and play bloody Sam Smith on a loop.

This gives me the rage so much!

there was a woman blasting some religious music on a very busy bus a few months ago. I asked her if she could please put headphones in or turn it off as it was right by my ear. She had a go at me and said she wasn’t bothering anyone - cue the driver saying you’re bothering me!

The problem is so many people are so scared of the backlash for speaking up that they don’t and the behaviour continues. I like to speak to my son. He’s 3 and will declare it’s too loud at times- “yes son, it is very loud- we don’t do that do we? It’s not fair on others” that sometimes gets them to turn it down.