If not then kindly move from my seat, say our respondents on the issue of train travel etiquette
Many of us rely on our national rail network, whether on a daily or occasional basis – and, if you’ve been organised enough to book a ticket ahead of travelling, then that seat is yours, regardless of who’s sitting in it when you board, our respondents have concluded.
- 61% of the 7,245 people who took part in our survey on train etiquette would ‘always’ ask someone to move who they’d found sitting in the seat they’d booked for a long journey on a jam-packed train
- Yet, by contrast, 36% of our respondents would make a moral judgement based on the perceived level of need of the person sitting there, irrespective of journey length
- Only 1% would ‘never’ ask someone to move from their seat – perhaps illogically, the longer the journey, the more reluctant these people would be to ask someone to move
According to their need
Train carriage politics brings into play one of the last bastions of the fabled British ‘temperament’: our social awkwardness when it comes to causing others inconvenience, even when we’re in much need of a seat.
- Yet 77% of all those asked would give up their seat for a pregnant woman
- Two-thirds would surrender their seat if an elderly person asked them
- And just less than half of you would allow a parent with a small child to take your place.
For those wondering ‘whatever happened to chivalry?’, our results have the answer – in the main, people will, when asked, do the right thing.
This means business
All-in-all, you were particularly hard-nosed when it came to moving business people out of your reserved seat.
- Indeed 100% of all train-travellers who took our survey would have no qualms requesting a businessman to move
For some, this was because they perceived an equal need; others went on their past experiences.
As one person remarked: ‘Very often my RESERVED seat is occupied – usually by a thirty-something business type, male and female – yet several other non-reserved seats are lying empty. I just put it down to carelessness, or arrogance. I never hesitate in asking them to move.
Intriguingly, those of you who said it ‘depends’ who it is as to whether you’d ask them to move, were slightly more inclined to let businesswomen be.
No hugs for hoodies
The ‘hoodie’ or hooded top continues to get a negative press, and this was reflected in our results.
- 85% of you who said your decision to give up your booked seat would ‘depend’ on who was sitting there, would ask a young person wearing a hoodie to move
- That this was slightly lower than the 92% of who would ask young people in general
‘I'd ask one sober hooded youngster to move during the day’, said one of you, ‘but not one of a dozen drunken hooded youngsters late at night!’
Cause for thought
Train journeys can be frantic affairs, but what our results show is that very few people want to get political over seats. What would take a little more time in organisation could pay off in avoiding this common conflict, as well as remembering that people can often be more polite, and more willing, than we might initially give them credit for.
