Phone speaker noise on trains - have we given up completely?

[Gareth]

Doesn't mention being a phone nuisance though. I don't think catching up with Great British Bake Off on open speaker can be classed as abusive behaviour, no matter how disagreeable one may find it. The issue needs to be mentioned specifically.

 

[bramling]

The footbridge at Lancaster station used to have this sign on display (photographed in August, 2014), but it's no longer there. Perhaps taken down when lockdown began.

View attachment 114599

Just the sort of thing one wants to walk past if you have guests from another country with you! Seriously, not a great advert for Britain.

 

[gazzaa2]

Doesn't mention being a phone nuisance though. I don't think catching up with Great British Bake Off on open speaker can be classed as abusive behaviour, no matter how disagreeable one may find it. The issue needs to be mentioned specifically.

The railways have allowed it to become normalised. They'd struggle to put the genie back in the bottle even if they tried (which they're unwilling to attempt).

 

[setdown]

Having civilian security staff on each train and/or station where most disruptive passengers board?

London Midland tried that, RMT ended up balloting for strike action over it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Just the sort of thing one wants to walk past if you have guests from another country with you! Seriously, not a great advert for Britain.

It is very much arrogant, officious "old TPE". I would agree it looks awful.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 May 2022 ==

London Midland tried that, RMT ended up balloting for strike action over it.

Beyond silly. Merseyrail do well with that.

 

[BeijingDave]

To be fair Japan is a collectivist culture whereas the UK is an individualist one. That is hard to change.

I know they're not the same, but they share much in common. Not least their ideogram-based writing system with many of the same characters' meanings (derived from Chinese).

China is also a collectivist culture and it's interesting to see how a rule gets adopted in East Asian society.

I have seen this happen regarding many things on the public transport system, such as eating on the Beijing Subway (to give just one example).

East Asian society is shame-based - order is imposed through fear of shame (loss of face); Europe is guilt-based (from Christianity).

In East Asian society, first of all, absolutely everyone ignores the rule (it is common for people to eat their breakfast on the subway commute). In Christian Europe, a significant number of people read and respect the rule.

Then, in East Asian society, a few heavy penalties are dished out very publicly to transgressors ("kill a chicken to scare the monkeys"), who have to endure serious loss of face in a train carriage, or worse, on a news report about a particular public behaviour crackdown or viral video. Everyone thinks "I don't want to be caught doing that" and almost overnight everyone starts following the rule. Further adherence is guaranteed by stares and passive-aggressive nudges from other citizens if anyone breaks the rule. Again, an individual hates the shame of being visibly shamed.

In Europe, more and more people adopt the rule as they become aware of it and see it as 'the right thing to do'. So we are left with a few transgressors who traditionally the authorities (guards, police or whoever) would have penalised, but really this doesn't happen in the UK any more (too many rules? not enough enforcers?)

I don't know whether it's better to live in a shame-based society, where people conform through fear of loss of face, or a guilt-based society, where mostly good people do the right thing because they think it's the right-thing to do. I think possibly the latter in some ways.

Currently, China's otherwise excellent long-distance trains are way worse than the UK's for nuisance beeps and people watching TV loudly on their smartphones. But when the authorities decide to change that, that too will be like 'flicking a switch'.

 

[londonbridge]

Apologies if off topic, but a while back I was in my local library when my phone rang. I answered and immediately moved to a corner of the room where I tried to speak quietly, but was approached by a staff member and asked to take the call in the stairwell between floors. I apologised and complied with the instruction. Fast forward to this morning, I’ve gone in to do some photocopying and there’s a woman having a conversation with her phone on speaker so you could hear both sides, and the staff and other people ignoring her. My point being that inappropriate noise in public is more widespread than just transport.

 

[Need2]

It is strange isn’t it, regarding someone having a conversation via a phone in public?
I find it incredibly annoying, irritating, rude etc etc like a vast amount of other people.
However, if the same person on the phone was having a conversation with the other person face to face would I (and others) even notice them?

 

[gg1]

It is strange isn’t it, regarding someone having a conversation via a phone in public?
I find it incredibly annoying, irritating, rude etc etc like a vast amount of other people.
However, if the same person on the phone was having a conversation with the other person face to face would I (and others) even notice them?

The key difference is the volume, both of the person in the carriage with you and the one on speakerphone, is generally louder than that of two people having a face to face conversation.

 

[Ianigsy]

If my bus home is anything to go by, it tends to be parents who use their devices as childminders so the entire bus gets the soundtrack of a cartoon or a repetitive children's song. It's rather sad, really, because I'm sure at that age my parents, auntie, grandma, etc were playing I-spy or "first one to see" to pass the time.

And on the subject of hen parties, I haven't recovered from having to stand from Liverpool to Manchester last year opposite a 'hen" who was carrying a 3ft long inflatable penis. There was a poor Chinese student sitting behind her who didn't know where to look.

 

[kristiang85]

Oh I've just discovered a new noise irritation - two blokes at a table playing a game that involves throwing two dice every 3 seconds. It is driving me insane.

It's not a massive problem though as I don't expect a quiet train on a Saturday night, but this train has already been rerouted twice since I've been onboard (away from my original station at first requiring to get off early, then back to the normal timetable later on), which shows exactly why I don't like using noise cancelling headphones - you miss important announcements which might end up getting you into trouble.

 

[satisnek]

If my bus home is anything to go by, it tends to be parents who use their devices as childminders so the entire bus gets the soundtrack of a cartoon or a repetitive children's song. It's rather sad, really, because I'm sure at that age my parents, auntie, grandma, etc were playing I-spy or "first one to see" to pass the time.

Now this raises the question of what's actually worse - plinky little tunes/sibilance-heavy soundtracks or excitable children playing 'I-spy'?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Now this raises the question of what's actually worse - plinky little tunes/sibilance-heavy soundtracks or excitable children playing 'I-spy'?

To me electronic noise is always more annoying than happy human voices.

 

[trainophile]

Kids who seemingly can't speak, they have to shriek everything, has made me move carriages on more than one occasion. Must admit my heart sinks when a family with small children board and sit near me. I've also been known to congratulate a mother with two delightful young girls who read and drew the whole way. She was very pleased.

 

[dcbwhaley]

The key difference is the volume, both of the person in the carriage with you and the one on speakerphone, is generally louder than that of two people having a face to face conversation.

Yes. You occasionally get two people having face to face conversion very loudly, often interspersed with raucous laughter , and it is equally irritating.

 

[trainophile]

Yes. You occasionally get two people having face to face conversion very loudly, often interspersed with raucous laughter , and it is equally irritating.

Hen parties .

 

[The Quincunx]

I was on the 10:35 Enterprise from Belfast to Dublin recently. Just as we pulled out of Lanyon Place, I could hear loud noises coming from a nearby phone. These continued for a while so, being surprisingly brave, I approached the lovely chap and sternly demanded that he either used headphones or turned it off. Rather than stab me to death (as I fully expected him to), he seemed completely stunned by this - he looked like he was in need of his breakfast heroin - and meekly complied by turning it off. Not a peep out of him for the rest of the journey. The two ladies sitting near me, who sounded like they worked in the media (radio or TV) in Dubin, smiled and nodded at me in appreciation.

 

[al78]

Kids who seemingly can't speak, they have to shriek everything, has made me move carriages on more than one occasion. Must admit my heart sinks when a family with small children board and sit near me. I've also been known to congratulate a mother with two delightful young girls who read and drew the whole way. She was very pleased.

I live next door to similar children and can sympathise, but I have to accept it as no matter how irritating it is, there is nothing I can do about it, and it is unreasonable to expect kids to play outside without making some noise.

I remember one occasion on a train when as was sat opposite a woman and a young child, and the woman did an excellent job of keeping the child occupied through interaction, either through books/games or pointing things out through the window. It was very nice to observe.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 May 2022 ==

Just the sort of thing one wants to walk past if you have guests from another country with you! Seriously, not a great advert for Britain.

It requests that in order to travel, you are not high on drugs or drunk, and that you are capable of behaving in a civilised manner. Seems logical to me. The fact that a company feels the need to erect such a poster does say a lot about Britain, and it is not great. Perhaps if we want to make a better impression on visitors from another country, we should stop behaving like irresponsible arseholes*, then there would be far less need to erect such posters. Condemn the provocation, not the retaliation.

*These exist widely through society because it is very difficult to successfully call them out without assistance from an authority with appropriate power (good luck finding that when you need it), so their behaviour has no internalised negative consequences, thus if they benefit from the behaviour with no cost, they will keep behaving in that way. That is why you get fare dodgers and antisocial behaviour that stops short of criminal, and why online interaction brings out the worst in people (anonymity = zero consequence). It is the price for living in a civilised society.