Most annoying behaviour(s) on MRT and commuter trains

If the train is not full and you can do it without interfering with people, knock yourself out. It’s excercise.

Buses are far worse than the MRT/trains for inconsiderate behaviour. My bugbear is people who insist on sitting in the aisle seat instead of moving over. Most people are too embarrassed to squeeze past so the empty window seat just stays empty (which makes the clustering-around-the-doors thing even worse).

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Aye and the not getting up to let people in or out of the window seat so you’re expected to squeeze through a tiny gap between the seat back and their knees, many’s an aisle seater who regretted not getting up to let my considerable bulk pass!

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People cluttering around doors when there are plenty of space inside the train.

But seriously it’s a lot better than elsewhere in the world! I haven’t seen graffiti (like in Berlin people keep writing f*** BVG there) or people peeing on the platform. But no need to here because every station has a bathroom, and even if it’s located inside the station past the turnstiles you can usually ask and they’ll let you in. In stations elsewhere in the world they have no bathrooms.

I fell once cause the asshole took the aisle seat and made it incredibly difficult for me to manoeuvre around her.

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  1. getting stabbed by a psycho
  2. getting pulled by your hair of a seat
  3. ending up in the 6 oclock news for pushing an old womens suitcase
  4. people standing in the middle

My first years in Taiwan I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of graffiti everywhere.

However, over the past 5 years, I have been noticing more and more new graffiti popping up all over. Pretty sad.

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It’s an ongoing trend! I actually think it’s in a bit of a waning phase.

Consider the millions of riders on public transport every month…hell, every week! Something is bound to happen now and then. Compared to incidents that go down in the USA and other countries on public transport, Taiwan transport is very, very safe.

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I find standing on toes to be incredibly motivating for those people

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If people crowd you and you feel uncomfortable just start
Chuckling to yourself and soon people will give you room cuz they now think you may be looney

The most annoying thing I’ve been seeing as people become more and more cellphone-addicted is commuters wrapping an elbow/leg/their entire body around a pole so they can still use both hands to tap away on their phones. It prevents other people from being able to hold on to that pole for support. Next time I come across this I think I’ll just hang on to the person’s hair.

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maybe they’re amateur pole-dancers.
lots of classes showing up in Taiwan and elsewhere

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Or make those perfumes that smell like you haven’t showered in days… But then it could backfire on you once you get to where you’re going.

That would be overkill for me.

Slightly off topic, but sort of a bizarro crowding rant… when in the rare occasion where there is PLENTY of room, somebody asks you to move aside because they are too lazy to simply move into/through the abundant empty space on either side of me. Happened to me twice

  1. Was trying to hail a cab and happened to be standing in the bike lane. It was in a very empty Nanjing E Rd (so very wide sidewalk). Dude on Ubike ding-dings and (politely) yells at me to get out of the way. Evolved into F* you shouting match until he got bored and left.

  2. At the baggage claim of O’Hare, where unlike Taiwan, there isn’t a massive crowd bunched up around the carousel. Taiwanese college kids ask me to move aside so that they can grab their luggage. Simply ignored them since it was a long flight and I was tired.

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That is like saying you were standing in the middle of the road and a car came upon you and honked at you to move. Then you blame the car for having the nerve to honk. Makes no sense.

You were in a bike lane, shouldn’t have been. You were forcing the bicyclist to abandon the lane and ride in a pedestrian area. Sounds like he had every right to signal you to get out of the way.

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Get out of the bike lane!

Thank you.

Guy

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Nothing like it. It’s a shared sidewalk with pedestrians given priority, not a dedicated bike only lane. It’s actually an offence to ding-ding at someone on the sidewalk, there have been quite a few fines handed out this year for it on sidewalks and riverside paths. I don’t understand why when someone gets on a bicycle they suddenly lose all sense of manners and social norms, aggressively ringing their bells at pedestrians, would they do that if they were walking behind someone?

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There are dedicated bike lanes.

Please don’t stand or stroll on them. Thank you.

Guy

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