AIBU to get annoyed when people board before passengers get off?

[amoobaa]

I have very few genuine pet hates, but this is one… and I’m curious to know if other people feel as strongly about it as I do.

People who push in and start boarding a train while passengers are still trying to get off.

The doors open, people start getting off, everyone is waiting to board and someone seizes the opportunity to push their way on, physically pushing through people trying to get off the train.

Or they stand directly in front of the doors and make no attempt to get out the way, so everyone getting off has to manoeuvre around them as they start pushing on.

I don’t get it… I’m standing to one side of the doors, along with every other person on the platform, waiting for everyone to get off before I board, and someone pushes in from behind us and pushes straight past and onto the train. Do they think we’re standing there for fun? 😂

I want to get on too… I’m just waiting because there are people who need to get off first.

There are announcements specifically saying “please allow passengers to leave the train before boarding”, and I’d always assumed this was also reasonably well understood public-transport etiquette.

It also makes practical sense- everybody gets where they’re going faster if you let people out before trying to pile in.

For some reason, this really gets under my skin. I commute regularly and probably see some version of it at least once a week. I can be remarkably unbothered by lots of things, so perhaps this is simply where I channel all my rage 😂

I find the entitlement enraging, it feels like they’re thinking “everyone else is waiting but I’ll just push through regardless because I’m more important”… but are they? Or are they just oblivious?

Equally, when I’m getting off the train and there are people patiently standing to the side, waiting for us to get off but one random person thinks it’s acceptable to push directly into the space I’m standing, to get on the train first. It makes it impossible to get off the train without ducking to one side (because if I just walking or stay where I am, I will collide with them). Sometimes I do that and they look really shocked that I’ve bumped into them. Are they really unaware of what they’re doing?

I’m genuinely curious about the answers.
Firstly, does anyone else get as annoyed by this as I do?

Secondly, what do you actually do in the moment? If someone barges past you while you’re waiting to board, or starts pushing onto the train while you’re still trying to get off, do you say something? Move in their way? Just ignore it? Duck out of their way?

I get so instantly irritated by it that I’m not convinced my instinctive response is always the most appropriate/ constructive one, so I’d like some good responses to have ready…

I really admire the people who occasionally speak up calmly but assertively to call it out. I fully intend to do this but I want suggestions as to what exactly to say 😁

And, most interestingly, is there anyone reading who recognises themselves as the person who boards before people have finished getting off, or walks past the people who are waiting and gets straight on? I genuinely want to know what your thought process is. Were you aware that everyone else was deliberately waiting for passengers to get off? Do you just not think it matters? Or have you never really thought about it?

Yes, I've found this increasing since lockdown. I actually walked into a big bloke a while ago who had planted himself in front of the doors and wasn't leaving space for anyone to get off.

I was getting off a train with a suitcase recently. A group of women were standing so close there wasn't room for me to swing my case off the train. So one of them decided I needed help and wrestled it from my hand. No I don't need help, I just want you to get out of the bloody way!

It was a very hot day and I just wanted to get home, so I said nothing, but looking back I wish I had.

YANBU and it's actually illegal, breaches railway byelaws 10.1.

The problem is that knobheads like this rarely take kindly to having their knobheadedness pointed out to them, so saying anything rarely achieves anything good.

I was once on the London Underground. It was on the Jubilee Line where there are actually kind of queues. This guy appeared from nowhere, bypassed the people who’d been waiting to the side for the doors to open, and shoved his way on before anyone could get off. A guy who was trying to get off but couldn’t said something, and the guy pushing in totally lost his shit with him. I honestly thought he was going to flatten him. All for objecting to not being able to get off the tube.

This so called social custom to allow people getting off to go first was a piece of practical crowd‑management dressed up as politeness. A doorway, bus step, or train carriage is a bottleneck. If people are trying to enter while others are trying to exit the bottle neck jams.* *The etiquette was a way of teaching children how to behave in shared spaces. It taught people that their personal convenience was not the only thing that mattered. Shared spaces require co-ordination. Letting people off first still makes everything faster and safer. The rule is one of the few that genuinely is fair and functional. It doesn’t privilege anyone; it simply prevents a jam.

People getting on too quickly is annoying. Might get flamed here but I do also see the other side: people who are near the door, seemingly ready to get off, but then proceed to DAWDLE and DITHER. They’re suddenly looking behind themselves to see if they’ve left anything, or just contemplating this new world called The Station that has opened before their eyes, or they decide to rummage about in a bag.

I find this a big issue (more so on the trains than buses). I'm a wheelchair user so request assistance/ramp. People will literally push past while the assistant is putting the ramp in situ. Some assistants say something some don't as they are worried about the consequences (and I dont blame them).
Buses, planes and train companies seem to want wheelchair users on first and off last but for some they think your getting preferential treatment when actually your just doing what the transport company want in order to help them keep their service running on time and for health and safety reasons.

The last time this happened to me I was getting off a tube in London and feeling grumpy only to be confronted by a sea of teenagers all intent on boarding that one carriage at the first crack of the doors. I unhesitatingly barged through the lot of them with elbows out. They were genuinely appalled at what they seemed to regard as terrible rudeness. I worked out that they all seemed to be European tourists and I did feel a bit mean about it after I'd calmed down.

a sea of teenagers all intent on boarding that one carriage at the first crack of the doors.

Platform staff at my local station once got very frustrated at a group of local students - 6th formish age - on a school trip who all boarded the train by the same set of doors.

They were calling out to them to move along and use other doors, because they were holding up the train, but they wouldn't.

It's not just public transport, the same applies to shops (particularly small boutique type shops) - let people out first then there's more room for you inside and last night I had this situation at the toilets at a concert. I commented quite forcefully that it would be easier to let me out first and did get a slightly sheepish 'sorry'.

YANBU. However, I get the train to work everyday, and honestly some people take forever to get off the train. There are a few times when I have let everyone off, stepped onto the train and there is someone there just beginning to gather their stuff together to leave.

YANBU to be annoyed, but IME the vast majority do behave sensibly

As for the foreign tourists many Europeans do not seem to queue as we do. I used to attend a huge antique fair in the North where there was always a massive queue to get in. The event was poorly organised. Instead of separate lines for people who had booked in advance and those paying on the day they had only one queue. So people who had the forethought to book were mixed in with the majority who were waiting to pay at the gate. I would share a tax from the station with other dealers, often French and German They walked without hesitation to the head of the queue as if they had been granted some special permit. They didn't push or shove anyone, just joined the bunch at the front to show their tickets. One said to me " I arranged my ticket online so I'm not going to wait behind people who pay on the day." I did feel he had a valid point.

It does happen a lot in London it drives me mad.
I am now of the age (60) where I get enraged by bad manners.
I do say " let me off the train, yeah?" Loudly
Then you get the ones who will push past even if other people are waiting to get on they can see they are waiting but they still push by.

I was waiting with my DD and DH for a train, there was a group of foreign exchange students , young men, teenage maybe.
They all just shoved on nearly sent me over. I was so annoyed. I asked the person who was with them ( he had lanyard ID so did they so I knew they were a group) if he was in charge . He said yes , I said ' teach them some manners then'
He did get them off that train, probably thought I was going to turn banshee.

Sometimes travel is fine and no problems .
Other times , feral

I agree so much and it is one of several irritating things that I see other passengers do whilst travelling. Mostly I think people are in their own bubble focused on what they need to do and are oblivious to anyone else. Sometimes I do say let us off first please in an annoyed tone but tbh people just look at me like I am the odd one.