'I'm on a bus!'
12:25 UK time, Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Mobile phone shouting, queue-jumping, smelly take-aways and feets on seats.
For commuters, the list of gripes against fellow passengers is a long and growing one. But the prevailing inclination is to make no fuss - the embarrassment of speaking up outweighs the potential gain, should the offender even bother to take notice.
Now someone is speaking up. A campaign is under way in London to emphasise courtesy while travelling on buses, trains and the Tube, launched with a directed by Mike Figgis. In it, bus passengers take action against rudeness, and each scenario is happily resolved.
It's not always that easy, so here is your chance to air your gripe. Whether your public transport is a train in Fife, a bus in Llangollen or a tram in Croydon, if you had one message to your fellow passengers, what would it be?
Send in your entries using the COMMENT form below. Your suggestion must be no longer than 30 words and focus on only one particular complaint.
Comments
Unless you've paid for two seats, don't take up two seats.
Please turn it down.
'Nuff said?
What I would like to say to an anti-social passenger (a) probably wouldn't get published and (b) depending on the location, might get me stabbed....
"Just because you want to listen to your music doesn't mean the rest of us have to. Headphones - learn them, use them, love them."
That little device next to your ear is a wonderful piece of technology that means the person in the next town can hear you without your having to shout.
See someone on a stick or heavily pregnant? Offer them your seat. Offered a seat? Accept or decline, but do it graciously. Politeness and courtesy are everything.
Teenage girls on buses in Greenford, west London, who not only play their music on their phones really loudly but think they're the next Mariah Carey and sing along (badly). Face it ladies, the reason you didn't enter the X Factor is because you knew you would lose, get over it and shut up.
Seats are for bums, not bags!
Know your body size, if your rear end takes up more space than an allocated seat size, be aware of this and act accordingly.
People who play music through their mobile phone speakers! Get some headphones AND turn the volume down!
Turn your mp3 players down!
I don't want my journey to work accompnied by both metallica and leona lewis at the same time!
Would you PLEASE move down the train.
The only response I've ever had to politely asking someone to alter their anti-social behaviour on a bus was the kind offer of "a slap". I declined with regret and got off at the next bus stop just as as the nice girl was calling her mates and telling them to "tool up" and meet her to "teach me a lesson". I think you can safely assume that particular lesson was already learnt.
People form an orderly queue for a bus, so why do they try and get on a train before anyone has a chance to get off?
Please don't stick your gum to the actual seat where people sit.
It's not nice.
Plus putting clothes in the freezer to get the gum off doesn't work.
Ever.
PLEASE DON'T TOUCH MY BOTTOM AGAIN or I will embarrass you. Promise.
Please don't react like you've been tasered if our wandering gazes meet.
To the constant 'sniffers', it sounds disgusting; please learn how to carry and use a handkerchief.
Don't leave your free newspaper lying around on the seat or on the floor. If you've finished with it, take it off the bus/tube/train and leave it with the other free newspapers in the station. You're not 'recycling', just littering.
Don't swear in front of my children, I don't want them turning out like you!
if you see someone on a crowded train looking sick/as if they are about to keel over - offer them your seat - a passed out body takes up more space than a standing one so everyone just ends up more crowded when the indevidual in question actually falls over!
Am I the only person who gets on well with my fellow passengers?
"I'm very sorry I landed on you when I fell over. I couldn't help it. I hope I haven't injured you - I know I'm going to have a bruise or two. The driver could see my walking stick, but he still jerked away from the bus stop while I was pulling my ticket from the machine. I'm so sorry."
No wait, I do say that. Lots.
I am not a sexist oaf, madam. If you don't want my seat, please be so good as to decline my offer politely.
Please exhibit courtesy when knifing fellow passengers. Thank them for their constructive comments on your behaviour, and do try not to get blood on the seats.
Stop READING MY PAPER..YOU CAN HAVE IT WHEN i'M FINISHED..NOT!
I am quite heavily pregnant, a kind man offered me his seat on the tube this morning, just as I was about to sit down, a woman who CLEARLY was able to walk/stand happily literally pushed past me and stole my seat!
I would like to thank all the other commuters who expressed their outrage at her and shamed her into letting me sit down.
Agree with all the above. Also, hardly anyone says please and thank you to the long-suffering bus drivers; it takes no effort to be polite and I'm sure they would appreciate it.
When waiting the 10 minutes for the next bus to arrive why not use the opportunity dig around and sort out the loose change for your fare then instead of doing it when you get on, leaving the rest of us standing in the rain.
I once was so annoyed by the loud music coming from a passengers earphones that I took my nail scissors out of my bag and cut him off - peace and quiet for the rest of the journey and a round of applause from the rest of the train
It's in your best interests to let me get out of my seat on the tube, don't just continue to stand there and make me miss my stop!
Don't block the wheelchair space on the bus with luggage and for heavens sake move out of the fold up seat when a person in a wheelchair gets on because THAT is the only space we have on the whole flipping bus!
There is no need to provide the entire bus with a blow by blow account of what you did at the weekend, especially if your weekend involved things better not mentioned in polite company. Talk quietly or better still not at all.
I appreciate your right to have children - please appreciate my right to travel home in peace without them screaming, running about and throwing sticky sweets/coke all over me. Thanks.
Would the man with the over-sized private parts please learn to sit with his legs together.
Sure, you can eat your way through a loaf of bread/apply make up/slurp coffee/cut your nails/other at home but you are no longer at home and neither are we.
You may like to wipe your filthy shoes all over your seats at home, but please don't do it here for other people to have to sit on.