When we went to London, we came back on the tube (Picadilly line from South Ken) at rush hour. I was amazed that no one would get up and let my daughter sit down. Those people acted like they OWNED the train, and their newspapers were like some sort of psychic shield.

God, I hate cities.

This is a huge problem on our trains here in Atlanta. People crowd the doors, and when the doors open, the people outside and the people inside all crush towards each other and make this huge traffic jam which takes way too long to filter out and allow the train to close its doors and move on. EVERY door on the trains says "Enter to the right" or "Exit to the right" (depending on if you're inside or outside) but still you just get this wall-of-humanity crush at a lot of stations, and it annoys me no end.

(I still love cities, though.)

But once inside I realized that there was plenty of empty space, it's just that everyone wanted to stand right by the doors.

They're almost as much fun as the people who board the train and then stop moving the second they set foot in the door, with no regard for the ten or twelve people behind them who would like to, y'know, enter the train, thankyewverymuch.

I was amazed that no one would get up and let my daughter sit down.

Was your daughter pregnant?

And while I've seen stuff similar to this before, somehow today was special. Just the sheer contrast between the empty interiors and the crush-loaded door areas was astounding.

Even when seats became empty people stayed at the doors.

No, she was an obviously exhausted little kid who had to stand up for 50 minutes. I certainly would've let her sit down if I were one of those lardy suits.

I HATE this. The bus driver says "Move to the rear of the bus", and NOBODY MOVES. Hello!!! There are others of us who would like to get on!!! I think it also stems from a fear of not being able to reach the doors when one needs to get off. But I've never seen someone miss their stop because they couldn't get to the doors, no matter how packed the train. THINK, people, THINK!

I've been on a school bus loaded with students headed to the university. When the bus driver asks them to move to the back, I can see everyone thinking, "Oh great, I get to squish even closer to these strangers." Seriously, I've seen it get extremely cramped in the bus, but I've never rarely seen the driver say that it was full. The few times I've been stuck standing, I couldn't stop thinking how ridiculous it was how squished-in everyone became.

My girlfriend was on the Jubilee line once and there was a man standing by the two poles that divide the standing lobby bit from the seating bit. He had an arm on each blocking the way. The train was full so she said excuse me and asked if she could get by (there were no seats free, it was just to stand in some space). He shouted back that he wasn't going to let her through because she'd steal the next seat that became free, and he wanted to sit down. Even promising not to steal it and just to stand up didn't work.

There are various words for this kind of person, all of which are either psychiatric terms or Anglo-Saxon ones.

At the time I'm coming home on the DLR, around 4pm, it's usually full of schoolkids who've taken most of the seats. Despite the fact that their travel is free, they never offer a seat to an elderly person or someone who really looks as if they need it. I'm now not averse, if someone needs a seat, to asking the kids to give up a seat for them.

Oh, and the noise! A small train carriage packed with 12-year-old girls all screeching to be heard over everyone else. Gah! The language too. From 12-year-olds, hearing the f-word and the c-word in what they consider to be normal conversation makes my skin crawl.

chuckdarwin: it would be unheard of for an adult to give up a seat to a child. I've seen seats given up (and have done it myself) for a parent with a baby or young child so the child can sit on their lap, but not a seat for the child itself. Children go free, adults pay, and the regular commuter shells out a big chunk of his or her pay every day to make that journey. Seats are hard-won on the London Underground and not given up without a fight.

Thanks, essexjan! I'm not used to tube ettiquette... not that I plan to ride it very often.

He shouted back that he wasn't going to let her through because she'd steal the next seat that became free, and he wanted to sit down.

What a fucker. That takes the cake.

Well, that's not just the tube - there is no way in hell you would get anyone to stand up for a child on my daily commute either (and I wouldn't do it), except a baby/infant/toddler. School kids here get 50% concession fares, but the condition is that they are not allowed to sit if there are adults standing.

People often do that thing where they stand near the door, but I saw a lady unable to struggle her way up the aisle to the door the other day because of people sitting on the floor in the aisle - she missed the last stop for 30 minutes, meaning she had to get off at the next stop, wait for a train going the other way (not many trains at that time of day go against the peak-hour traffic) and then have another 30 minutes back, so I could understand why people do that sometimes. Really, though, a little bit of intelligence and foresight tells you that you need to move towards the door earlier instead of waiting until the train is pulling into the station, given that most stops are for less than 30 seconds.

Actually, what really annoys me is the people who dump their luggage all over the seats (my afternoon train originates at the airport), taking up as many as four or five seats. A number of commuters (one of whom is me) have taken to dumping all their luggage in the aisle and sitting down. Which is kind of rude, but when someone can see that their luggage is taking up all the vacant seats (and the train has empty luggage racks) it's even more rude to sit there looking smug and do nothing. We have to ride the train every fucking day, unlike you who are just coming back from a holiday in some idyllic spot, you arseholes!