Entitled Parents on Public Transport

I find people are quite good in offering me a seat on the London underground, I'm 76, still work, and quite honestly very hale and hearty and usually fine to stand. I'm always very thankful though, and accept if I'm going on a long journey or feeling my age!
I often think,I don't know what kind of day my fellow passengers have had, or if they are actually in good health! If travelling with my grandchildren, I'd rather they sat and I stand, as they rarely travel on the tube and would be falling all over the place.

Juniper1

The’old bat” had contributed a lifetime for that bus pass.

How do you know? She may have been a SAW and contributed very little.

I went out to work for over 40 years and always paid the full stamp but it does not give me the right to behave like lady muck, take up two seats and force a fellow pensioner to sit on the edge of the seat.

I have had a pensioner bus pass for 16 years now and I well understand that it does not entitle the holder to behave like a selfish - and expect everyone to respect you.

I travel on the Elizabeth line quite often and usual get offered a seat. If I don't I ask.

DH disabled, I often call out for someone to stand up in the tube to allow him to sit. Occasionally someone gives me their seat I thank them and ask if DH can have it instead as I am old whereas he is old and disabled

A few years ago, I was told by the bus driver that I couldn’t get on the bus with my granddaughter who is in a wheelchair because the wheelchair space was taken up by a buggy. I asked why the mother couldn’t fold the buggy and put the child on her lap, but apparently he couldn’t ask her to do that. I did point out that according to the bus company’s notice the wheelchair space should be vacated if a wheelchair user needs it, but he refused and said it was drivers discretion. I did complain to the bus company, but never got a response.
Sadly ignorance and arrogance have taken over from manners.

Then there's the trolley brigade who insist on sitting on the outside seat with their trolley blocking the aisle and make a big fuss and little effort to move their legs so you can get to the window seat. I'm obviously disabled and their rudeness is really selfish.

Abcdefg

DH disabled, I often call out for someone to stand up in the tube to allow him to sit. Occasionally someone gives me their seat I thank them and ask if DH can have it instead as I am old whereas he is old and disabled

I have a disabled DH who cannot stand very long without keeling over so I call out for someone to let my husband sit down because he is disabled, and old of course.
There have been occasions where seated passengers will try very hard to ignore me but I do not give up. Some journeys are easier than others of course but I hate having to do this, I don’t want to make an issue out of my husbands disability, and the reason he can’t speak out is because he has had a stroke and sustained brain damage.
It really can be difficult so on occasion I just order an Uber, fact is we qualify for attendance allowance soon which will help.

Sarnia

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest. There is a growing sense of entitlement amongst the younger generations. Too many appear to have been brought up with little or no regard for others or their surroundings. Basic manners, politeness and respect have all but disappeared. Things can only get worse for future generations.

I find this ironic as you complain that you are entitled to the seat they are sitting in.

It’s nothing new. In the early 1980s my 3 year old son had fell on glass and cut his knee badly which needed stitches. An acquaintance gave me a lift with him to Alder Hey children’s hospital but having no car , no phone and no money I had to get two buses back to our house with him in a full leg splint . He was too big to carry and we didn’t have a pushchair so he had limped to the bus stop holding my hand . I had just missed a bus and the bus stop was empty but then the local secondary school let out and when a bus came I was elbowed to the back of the queue . I just about managed to get on the bus but no-one on the bus offered me a seat . Luckily on the second bus we managed to get a double seat and he could sit on my knee with his leg stretched across the other seat . There have always been inconsiderate people about .

Dee1012

On the other hand, my son is in his early 40's and looks like a tall, healthy man.
However his first stroke was at the age of 28 and he's had numerous spinal surgeries so his mobility isn't great and neither is his balance.

I've lost count of the number of times I've had to challenge someone who has either expected him to move on public transport or who has made passive - aggressive comments about him sitting down and not offering his seat.

Hello Dee

Hope both your and son are well

I think your son's problem maybe is that he looks OK and I'd fairly young. And is not in a wheelchair.

Don't know where you live. But l would go all out and apply to your Local Transport Authority for a Disabled Bus Pass.

Then you have proof that he is more than entitled to have a seat.

If you already have one and any other passenger complains won't give up their seat.

Show them it, and tell them about his balance and walking problems. If you have problem with them go and tell the bus driver.

They maybe reluctant to get involved. But at least they can point out to passengers where the signs around disabled seats are.

Hope your son's health improves.

Best Wishes

👍🌻👍

X

Entitled parents/guardian.

Sarnia

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest. There is a growing sense of entitlement amongst the younger generations. Too many appear to have been brought up with little or no regard for others or their surroundings. Basic manners, politeness and respect have all but disappeared. Things can only get worse for future generations.

I must respectfully disagree with you. I am afraid that my experience of awful, entitled behaviour on public transport is nearly always perpetrated by the bus pass brigade.

They push in front getting on and off, sit on the outside of the seat, put their bags on the seat and refuse to move it, clog up the aisle with their trollies and glare at everyone.

That is not to say they are all like that as most of them are perfectly polite and pleasant.

There are a significant number of old bats who think of a bus pass not as a privilege but as the right to behave in a most atrociously impolite, bad mannered and disrespectful way.

I agree with nearly all of what has been said in these posts around bad manners,entitlenent and selfishness.

But my main gripe is with some other pensioners and their entitlement to a disabled seat on the buses and metros where l live.

I am 71, though l look well and much younger and had a disabled bus pass for many years. Suffered with chronic joints pain due to arthritis for over twenty years.With breathlessness and walking problems. Walk all the time with crutches.

Also recently had a full left knee replacement. Still very stiff and on the waiting list for the same for my right knee. Plus nasal and spinal surgery to improve worsening breathing problems.

In my experience we all slow down when we get older and the aches and pains get worse and old age illnesses set in. That's life I'm afraid.

Yes, and it is good to be able to sit down on a seat on the bus

However some pensioner bus pass holders are subject to varying degrees of health and clearly do not need to be sat in disabled seats.

My pet hate is when they have spent hours trawling around shopping centres and drag two heavy full bags of food, parcels and a full shopping trolley and park themselves on the front of the bus priority seats

And they also think it is their god given right to also have next to them seat to put their shopping on.

When l have asked them if they can move and explain my health problems and that l have a disabled pass. All l get is " Well my knee hurts as well.

When they get off at their stop. They can easily get up. Walk at a normal pace and carry their shopping off this bus without a problem.

Also there also seems to be a widespread outbreak of self diagnosed, rapidly encroaching Invisible disability health problems amongst the population in general.

And l don't mean genuine stuff you can't see in a person and and has been medically diagnosed and medicated. Also people who are not well due to recent operations and ongoing health problems and need to sit down.

Only recently started to use the bus again for esesential stuff and only when l can't get a Ring and Ride.

Who are really over subscribed due to the Andy Burnham, brownie point grabbing management and have a new poor computer system. Which promised everything and now can't cope with the demand cross boundary journeys.

I agree that not all older people need a priority seat, before my husband had a stroke in his mid seventies he would offer his seat to a person of any age who looked as if they were struggling, after all priority seats are not just for older people, some are pretty fit fit their age. And not all entitled passengers are parents with children. It goes right across the board.
Now my husband needs a priority seat but if is one nearby I won’t insist upon it, only if the bus or train is packed will I do this.
The thing is my husband isn’t just disabled, he looks disabled, some don’t, so I can understand some confusion, but my DH can only shuffle forwards holding a stick whilst I hold his other arm, yet still sone people can be loathed to give up a seat whilst others will jump up immediately.
It seems if some people have paid for a ticket they think they have to hang onto a seat at all costs or maybe they just can’t be bothered to stand. Have even seen a woman sitting next to a teenage boy, presumably her son, put a hand on his arm in order to stop him giving up his seat, which was mean. But that’s life.

I vividly remember my first trip abroad with my family. We had to travel about 200 miles on a bus. We had allocated seats, however there were two very large ladies who were unable to fit in their seat over the wheels! My mother offered for me and my brother to sit in their seats. My brother got the window seat and had both legs up high. I was on the aisle seat, so one leg up high and the other with plenty leg room. The bus also had seeats that folded down in the aisle so once you were in you couldn't get out to stretch your legs! It was a terrifyingly unsafe mode of transport and for us, excruciatingly uncomfortable. Thankfully we survived. I know my mum did the right thing offering our seats, but didn't think much of it at the time!

I took my grandson on a day out by bus. When the bus filled up I tried to get him to sit on my lap but he kicked off big time. The man who was standing told me not to worry, he was fine to stand. I felt guilty and was very relieved that the bus was quite empty on the way home so we didn't have a repeat performance.

Magenta8

I have also experienced having to rest one cheek on the edge of a seat on a bus because an old bat refused to move her bag onto her lap. As she was elderly and no doubt had a bus pass, she hadn't paid for one seat let alone two.

I would have made her move it. Or sat on it. I have a bus pass too BTW. 😁

This is it though ! the young always have to retort to name calling or abuse if something is not to their likening.

Generalisations about the young and the old are not really very helpful.

I always try to avoid confrontations and I don't call people names to their faces but in my mind I call the minority of bus pass holders who behave so atrociously far worse things than old bats.

Am not sure why we witness such bad manners from some - by no means all - people who use any form of transport. Drivers can display bad manners, and we have heard about bad manners on trains and buses but for me the one form of transport that really can be the absolute worst is sue travel, but let’s not get started on that.

Correction air travel not sue travel - whatever my phone thinks that is.

I’d like to know which generation posters are referring to; our son and daughter are now 40 and 42 with young children. They have always been taught good manners and so have their sons. There have always been bad-mannered families and ignorant teenagers. I think some people see the past with rose-tinted spectacles!
The one notable difference I have found in behaviour is the use of bad language, especially in front of children. Some can’t manage a sentence without using it. Much of it is influenced by TV - I just switch off, it’s so annoying and unnecessary.

I think a lot of the younger generation have an entitled attitude. They ignore signs, do whatever they want even if it disturbs or annoys other people. I don’t use public transport if I can help it as have seen younger people leave a lady with heavy shopping bags stand in the aisle trying to balance herself and many more incidents of complete disrespect.
My Niece who lives and works in London and uses the tube and train service most days told me if she sees a passenger with a bag on a seat she will ask for the bag to be moved and if it’s not she threatens to sit on it, or attempts too. She said they soon grab it out if the way.

bobbydog I think a lot of the younger generation have an entitled attitude. So do a lot of the older generation and the ones in the middle.

I do agree with TiggyW that bad language is more common nowadays. But obnoxious behaviour on public transport is certainly nothing new.

I was in London for a few days last week ( booked and paid for before we knew about the tube strike ). We obviously had to use buses, which were packed of course. I was amazed at how often I, and my son, who has Down’s Syndrome, were offered seats. People sometimes made us go ahead of them in the queues too. On our last day, the strike was over, and a couple of times someone carried my son’s suitcase up steps for him underground. On our train journey home ( on three different trains ), men lifted our cases up onto the luggage racks without being asked. It made such a difference to our travels. There were always the ones who wanted a seat for their bags too, of course.

grannybuy

I was in London for a few days last week ( booked and paid for before we knew about the tube strike ). We obviously had to use buses, which were packed of course. I was amazed at how often I, and my son, who has Down’s Syndrome, were offered seats. People sometimes made us go ahead of them in the queues too. On our last day, the strike was over, and a couple of times someone carried my son’s suitcase up steps for him underground. On our train journey home ( on three different trains ), men lifted our cases up onto the luggage racks without being asked. It made such a difference to our travels. There were always the ones who wanted a seat for their bags too, of course.

That is so nice to hear, I feel a bit choked up at how lovely those people were.

I travelled from Devon yesterday, worried about train cancellations as it was likely with the Dawlish stretch. My train was ok but crowded as previous train cancelled. Everyone was being helpful. Out in Bristol today with GC and not many buses due to strike. Honestly everyone was great, helping me with buggy, bus driver patient as I manoeuvred buggy off crowded bus.

It's heartening isn't it to focus on the positive.