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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have asked for a seat on the bus?

79 replies

dilemma456 · 21/04/2009 18:52

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Ripeberry · 21/04/2009 20:01

This is the main reason i hate public transport. You don't know what nutters are travelling with you. At least in a car you are protected from them.
And anyway where i live there is only one bus a day!

MelanieLiv · 21/04/2009 20:04

YANBU. Clearly very sad man with no one else in his life to take his frustrations out upon. Have a glass of vino on me!

dorothygale · 21/04/2009 20:11

YANBU at all.
That said I was once the subject of a large amount of abuse/sarcastic comment when I failed to give up my seat- I couldn't see the person from where I was sitting (he was stood behind me) was reading and tbh even when i saw him wouldn't naturally have known he needed a seat -
I would always offer if i noticed but I think a politely worded request is often easier ( i have also done the deeply embarrassing thing of offering a seat to someone and it being refused)

ABetaDad · 21/04/2009 20:16

YANBU - had the exact same problem when DS1 and DS2 were young.

It is not just the young blokes. My big annoyance on the bus right now is the late middle aged women with their had bags on the seats beside them just sitting there looking at DSs when we get on.

I just walk up them and tell them to shift their bag and threaten to sit on it and then invite the DS to sit down instead. They can put their handbag on their knee surely. Blokes tend not to do that but a lot do sit there looking at pregnant women, those carrying toddlers or struggling with a fold up pushchair and baby.

dorisbonkers · 21/04/2009 21:20

YANBU.

In Singapore people on the tube system suddenly developed narcolepsy when I was heavily pregnant and got on. Right in the middle of crosswords, texting, reading the paper. They all mysteriously fell asleep.

There's also a thing called 'choping', or reserving a seat with a packet of tissues or paper. Waiting for the train to pull into the station I could feel this guy elbowing me. As the doors opened and we could see someone in the priority seat get up, he tried to squeeze past to get it but couldn't, so he threw his newspaper above my head to 'chope' the seat.

Needless to say I was so shocked, and so hormonal that I couldn't say anything (didn't want to lose my cool). But I cried once I got to my station. I felt that big.

TheCrackFox · 21/04/2009 21:33

ABetaDad, you are so right about the handbag thing. Apparently they need a seat all of their own.

My big bug bear at the moment is people who sit on the aisle seat and leave the window seat vacant. At times like this I really feel that I should carry an electric cattle prod. They deserve it, the fuckers.

ZZZen · 21/04/2009 21:38

That sitting on the aisle seat and not moving across to the window seat is the NORM in Berlin. Almost everyone will choose to sit on the aisle seat because you get out more comfortably. I am used to it now. People just calmly sit there and let you clamber over their legs and past their bags and stumble to your window seat in a mvoing bus. Even if you land flat on their face they seem unfazed by it.

I don't think I would even raise an eyebrow at that one anymore

Actually it has happened to me a few times that I've offered someone (usually elderly) a seat and they have refused. Makes you feel like an idiot. Maybe they feel insulted to be seen as too old to stand?

pinkmagic1 · 21/04/2009 21:40

Oh I do hope I pass my driving test next week! Public transport attracts the most miserable, rude people ever. I remember getting on the tram when 8 1/2 months pregnant and no one offering me a seat, just pretending they didn't notice me.

Noonki · 21/04/2009 21:43

yabu - not really just wanted to be the first to diagree.

ZZZen · 21/04/2009 21:43

well wait till you have a slanging match over whose parking spot it is!

Good luck with your test though

starkadder · 21/04/2009 21:45

YANBU at all! What a horrible man. I live in Spain and people here are generally really good at offering seats, both when I was pregnant and now if on bus/metro with young child.

That said, when we were in the UK my particular bus route to work (along the Embankment in London)was full of people who were SO incredibly polite that they argued about who should sit down most of the time. It was like some kind of joke bus. To start with I was always worried that I was being mistaken for being pregnant but I came to realise that they were all just excessively polite and old fashioned (men giving up seats for women, AND for older men, older men wanting to be even MORE old fashioned and chivalrous, etc etc). Lovely bus, it was....

ZZZen · 21/04/2009 21:47

Sounds terribly British (in a nice way). Like that. When I was using London transport I was more concerned with not getting my bum pinched as I recall, maybe that's why people are so desperate to keep their seats?

spicemonster · 21/04/2009 21:48

People are vile and selfish aren't they? My sister has a broken arm (quite obviously - it's in a sling) and she is worried about it getting bashed about on crowded buses so she asked a woman with her teenage son if she could sit down. The woman said 'oh well, we're getting off at the next stop' So that's a no them

YANBU - I'd have given you my seat

Noonki · 21/04/2009 21:49

It reminds me of when I was pregnant (really pregnant) and no one gave me a seat on the tram.

It was really busy and these teenage girls were pushing each other so that they kept bumping other people.

They did it to me and I literally screamed

'I am pregnant. Behave.'

They mumbled an apology, everyone stepped away from me and the entire carriage went silent

ZZZen · 21/04/2009 21:50

you should have lain down on the floor and made grunting noises and screams just to frighten the daylights out of them.

Ripeberry · 21/04/2009 21:55

I was sitting on a bus once, just managed to squeeze into an aisle seat and i was 8 months pregnant so quite large and this woman got on with her mates, the bus lurched a bit and she just hit me hard in the stomach and just laid there laughing (must have been pissed).
So i just heaved her off and said that i was pregnant and she just said "So What?"
I felt really upset the rest of the journey home and was worried about the baby, had a big bruise but everything was OK, but it could have been worse.
Also on public transport, especially evening trains its best to ALWAYS sit in the aisle seat to stop drunks trapping you.
I've moved seats many a time when someone sat next to me and stank of drink.

Heated · 21/04/2009 21:58

The first and only time we've used a bus with ds1 was a pita. I had the pram between my legs and dh had ds on his lap. When a mum got on the bus with her toddler, baby and pram nobody moved for her, so we gave her our seats and went upstairs (ds very excited about that & it was pretty empty). The bus then suddenly came to a stop, the transport police stormed upstairs to arrest two teenage boys glue sniffing at the back and the bus driver gave dh short-shrift for not spotting them

I love my car.

ABetaDad · 21/04/2009 22:02

TheCrackFox - thanks for that (I assume you are a woman) I really thought I would get flamed for that comment. .

If my wife and I get on a bus together with the kids we do in fact sometimes say in a loud voice to each other something like what you said "I assume the bag needs a seat as well .... wonder if it has a ticket?"

usernamechanged345 · 21/04/2009 22:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Thunderduck · 21/04/2009 22:07

I hate when people insist on sitting next to you even though there are plenty of free seats with no other person on them. I can't understand why people do that.

JemL · 21/04/2009 22:16

When I went to visit my sister in London while pregnant with DS, no-one gave offered me a seat, and no-one would meet my eye when I asked. So my sister and I began to sing "All By Myself" to take my mind off the discomfort of having to stand. Worked a treat

LissyGlitter · 21/04/2009 22:23

I hate it when there are loads of free seats, but some people decide to sit in the pram space, and just glare at you when you say "excuse me" to get your pram in. I've even had someone mutter "in my day we used to fold prams up" Well I would have loved to have a nice fold up buggy (I have one now I have a 2yo) but my child was newborn at the time and I'd just had a cesearian AND it was the only pram that had been given to me in my very poor state! (a travel system style thing) Also now I'm pregnant I'm avoiding lifting, so again I need to be able to push my pram with my heavy dd straight onto the bus.

I find the best buses tend to be the small local companies. The drivers will actually stand up for you, and lower the bus, and park near the pavement. Stagecoach (spit!) are just rude. I used to boycott them (the owner uses his fortune to fund incredibly homophobic things like the campaign for that section 28 in schools and the idea that you can be "cured" of being gay) but now they have taken over our local bus company we're doomed.

ABetaDad · 21/04/2009 22:28

LissyGlitter - The Stagecoach drivers are really great with women and prams where we live. That sounds odd they are being like that.

NigellaTufnel · 21/04/2009 22:40

YANBU

Must admit when I was pregnant the nicest people on the tube were young Eastern European men. Couldn't offer me a seat fast enough. Bit of a nice revelation.

Sorrento · 21/04/2009 23:03

Did you not say to him, gosh that'll be news to my husband loudily and show him up for the nob he is ?
I would have even if I wasn't married lol