Rude Obnoxious and Dangerous Cell Yell and other fellow urban transit passengers

[Steve Sweeney]

The original post to this thread is over-the-top and is now locked.

Please see me with any questions. 

Best,

Steve S.

[pajrr]

It isn't just on trains. I work retail and customers checking out absorbed in their calls and not paying attention to you, the one trying to help them. Here in the NYC area some passengers are bringing jamming devices on trains to shut the idiots up. They are illegal and could unfortunately block 911 calls and even train orders. A lot of crews communicate by cell phone now. Human courtesy has gone the way of steam locomotives. Everyone is privelidged now, rules apply to you not me, and if you try to stop me I will sue you.

[railtrail]

So the probelm hearin lies that how do we convince middle and upper class people to give up there cars for transit if that means sharing there ride with other people who dont share there values and hygene?

[railtrail]

Al Sharpton has not helped either. What would Martin Luther King say about this? I am thinking that the punks that are giving me problems in the inner city have been indoctrinated away from the peacefull ways of a Dr King into a much more radical philosophy. How many Years has been since Bernard Goetz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Goetz went off on those young upstanding young men?

[railtrail]

In most transit systems there are signs warning about cell phone use and there are posted quiet cars. However certain ethnic people are exempt from these rules and my experance has been as a person of white eastern european jewish descent that reminding someone ( by pointing out the sign who is of the african american descent in a Inner City Urban Enviroment can lead to that persons appendiges landing in ones face.  It took enough of these incendents that by me and a few broken noses to realize that I am excerting white privalage as a person from white suberban land that how dare I try to impress my values on a subjugated people in the inner city ethinic guettos and  that I am somehow resposible for creating by the sins of my grandparents abadoning for greener pastures in the Burbs.---

Now that I am reformed I am actulay entertained by the converastions that I hear via cell yell on the train/bus like 1. " I am on my way downtown to bail my baby daddy outta jail so he can pay his child support" or 2. " I put my babby daddy in jail because he hit me after I asked him if my butt was too big but now my baby needs formula (see #1). 3. My parole officer has just found a rehab place for me and my social worker is going to get me on SSSI and I am so happy.4. I just got out of jail and my baby momma wont let me back in the house can I stay at your place?"5." I just has surgery done on my spleen and they found a cancerous tumer on my uterous and there is fluid seeping out of my colon and the doctor wont give me enough oxucodone" 6. "Guess Who Died!" ( The GWD game Uslualy from old people who then go on a littney of how there gall blader is affecting there spleen and liver spots..

I hear enough of peoples personal lives that if Mike Royko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Royko who worked for all three newspapers in Chicago would have to write a seperate daily column just for the conversations that he would overhear on peoples cell phones on the L had he lived long enough to see mass cell phone usage.

I can deal with drunks (Please pass the bottle). Students who are unruley( Get a emergency transfer get off on a get on the next bus or train or wait the student rush hour at the station bar) People who wet there pants( Always feel seat before plopping down) Mary Jane Smokers who use our new glass enclosed bus sheters as there personal bong room with there freinds( Stand Outside or jump right in) and people who have not taken showers for months or even years.

I love trains and trolleys but the leval of civlity in America is just going downhill fast and rudeness is of epic proportions. In years past people on transit would take kindly to asking them to just stop. Now even transit police have reminded me that if something happens its actualy me thats in the wrong by confronting my fellow passenger for being rude and if i get hurt its my own fault. I think what has changed is that at one time that transit in old urban centers was working middle class at least 2 times a day and thus they had some class like Shaker Hts and Brookline. But with unemployment reaching epic proportions not seen since the great depresion everybody is losing there cool and civility is just a old time notion.