I bumped into a friend who is cop in the British Transport Police at a station while he was working. While I was there somehow a happy-drunk guy fell between a train and the platform and got stuck. That’s not the crazy part.
The crazy part is the four separate people who all ended up getting arrested because they attacked my friend and the other responders trying to free the stuck man - physically kicking and trying to drag them away - because he/they wouldn’t order the train to leave the station and it was making them late. Four separate people, all apparently sober, all absolute psychopaths who would happily see someone mangled by a train so they wouldn’t be inconvenienced, and so utterly convinced of their righteousness that they were prepared to physically attack police officers and paramedics.
I was later told this is pretty normal when there’s a “one under”: aside from the person who fell getting injured or dying, the biggest immediate problem is a handful of narcissistic cunts who interpret the whole thing as some kind of personal insult. It really shook me that anyone could be like that.
What the fuck?
This is the second highest comment in the thread and it’s so bizarre that I don’t think I need to bother thinking of something to contribute myself.
So, trying to kill someone who falls onto the tracks is normal? Someone should study this
The topic here is public transportation, but look at how many behave on the roads with their personnal cars, ready to cause accidents just to not be slowed
or the fact that millions die on the roads each year, and no one gives a damn unless they are their own family members…
This is like the weirdest IRL trolley problem, but the consequences of the decision are 1 death vs. several people running late or being mildly inconvenienced.
#Utilitarian at all cost *💪🏼 *unless it’s me getting mangled
Imagining a fully automated dystopian future where decisions are always predetermined and based on greater good rules. Billionaires can’t grasp why we’re so ungrateful for the better world they’ve created, so clearly it must be further proof we don’t know what’s best for us.
While I generally oppose police brutality, I think this is a good case for it.
I think in that case the Transport Police should ask them to leave the station building, or get physically moved out without warning. If they refuse, you can set the rest of the train on them, stating that they delay is now due to the person not leaving the train/platform, rather than the passenger being stuck.
i had a dude walk up to me and say “never just take unsolicited advice”
possibly the best advice i ever got. total mindfuck though
A group of us in NYC and dude rolled up with a rope and declared, “Never leave the house without some rope” and then went on his way.
Could’ve been a firefighter. They’ll tear your ass apart in the fire academy if you don’t have your rope on you, at all times. Now that I think about it, you wouldn’t believe the stuff I keep in my car at all times now.
BDSM enthusiast is another possibility. Never know when you’ll run into someone who wants to be tied up.
They must have felt so vindicated by Boondock Saints.
I NEED MY TOOLS!
Probably just another Big Rope stunt.
Thats fucking amazing.
That’s the IRL / performance art equivalent of “ceci n’est pas une pipe.”
I had forgotten about that painting. Lol thanks for reminding me, that’s a great comparison.
Uh, this is not a reminder to stare at art.
Please do not stare at art.
Art get very nervous when you stare at them.
Welp, that was unintentional, but… apparently our shadow person here… yep, meet Arthur everyone.
Don’t be shy.
… he would not like that, if you were shy…
EDIT: Wow, I thought this comment was in another thread.
… I’m leaving this here for additional absurdity.
EDIT 2:
I found Arthur
Lmao, love it.
Hi Arthur.
I thought I was was responding to an entirely different thread in an art comm.
The piece is titled “Happy Person Having A Pleasant Conversation In Public”, by Randy Ortiz.
… But now, he is Art, Arthur.
So do you follow his unsolicited advice of not following his advice? Or do you not follow it, by following it?
Once an old guy asked me to hold the door for him when the train stops so he can stand up and get out. I did but he took very long to stand up so I instinctively went to help him, the door closed and the train went on. So we both excited at the next stop and wanted to get the train back. It was the worst possible stop because the walk was crazy long and the old guy crazy slow. Me being way too helpful, I walked with him and he told me about how his family never visits him anymore and all kinds of trouble in his life, while one train after the other passed by. Eventually we arrived on the other side, got back to the original stop and exited. I escorted him to a taxi. He was very thankful for the adventure and I was a few hours late to work.
Aww, you are a kind and good person, and I’m glad that you’re in this world with me.
I try to be but it was honestly overwhelming since I’m actually not a very social person, especially not back then. Luckily he was talking most of the time. It was a learning experience for me and I’m glad I did it.
Work can wait, people in need cannot. You did the right thing. Thanks for talking about it here.
Back when I was in college I road the bus every day. Nothing even remotely as crazy as most of the comments here describing happened that I witnessed on those hundreds of bus rides There was the dude wearing a parka when the heat index was over 100, or the guy weeping holding a bouquet while heading into a residential area and those are honestly not that interesting because shit happens but I do have one story:
One fairly quiet bus ride I was seated in some of the sideways seats near the front and a lady seated across from me was reading a newspaper. My eyes are drifting as I’m listening to a podcast and suddenly I realize on the front of the paper this lady is reading is a photo of my dad. I asked her “excuse me, could I look at that paper quickly? That’s a photo of my dad there and I want to see what he’s been up to to get in the paper but hasn’t told me” and it turns out he helped run a Wikipedia edit-a-thon event at a local library to help encourage new contributors.
That’s a wild way to find out. Lol
As a Wikipedia contributor myself I thank your dad 👍
Guy getting mad at the conductor for calling him sir because only a priest can be called that…
HUH??
Yeah he argued with the conductor for like 10 minutes while the whole traincar listened in silence.
Poor employee was just following guidelines of politely addressing customers
The tram I was on with my dad and little sister struck a woman, she had an umbrella open so she didn’t see the tram (it was a sunny summer day). It cracked her head open and I’ll never forget that sound. The driver panicked and only opened the front door of the tram, right where the woman was laying on the ground, so we were forced to walk out of the tram and jump over the pool of blood gushing from her head. My dad tried to make us not look but I saw the hole in her head, and her brain. I was 10 and my sister 8.
She died on the way to the hospital.
And I just realised I now live in the apartment building right by the tram tracks where it happened, haven’t thought about that memory for a long time.Jesus fuck…
Someone sprayed ME with a bottle of water. I was on my phone, and when i looked up this old lady was spraying water over her shoulder without looking and hit me directly in the face! When i asked what she was doing she walked over to me saying someone had cursed her, and her reflection in the window was facing the wrong way so she decided to spray “holy water” over her shoulder.
Thankfully after getting a COVID test done (this was in 2021 mind you) it was in fact just water.
reflection in the window was facing the wrong way so she decided to spray “holy water”
And this kind of thing happens often enough that she carries holy water on her all the time? 'K ‘mam we’re gonna need you to take your meds’
I’m just glad there wasn’t anything mixed into the water, and I wasn’t being sprayed with some unknown virus 🦠
Seeing your reflection facing the wrong way would be actually terrifying… I think it would take more than holy water to fix that, though.
Possibly, but is also a random curse to have if that was the only symptom 🤔
Random… Until your reflection grabs you from behind and pulls you into the mirror realm…
Oh shit!!
Not just water, but holy water. At least now u know ur not a vampire either!
Always good to see a silver lining 😉
Waiting for a matatu and one dude starts beating the shit out of another. Two separate times.
Cool dude gets on near Bakersfield, sits next to me, drinks a 12 pack and tells me how he murdered people in prison.
Various people smoking crack, meth, and fety on trains and buses
Dude gets asked to turn his music down, goes on escalating and frankly impressive rant for 10 minutes about how he’s going to cut the guys head clean off with his machete
Various guys jacking off
Various rants against every race
Spent 90% of my life taking public transit and I love it. Big public transit fan and I wish people would intermingle more in general.
But, if you talk loudly or listen to music on the tinny speakers on your phone, you are the scum of the earth in my eyes. I’d rather have a dude strung out on heroin on the train than you, absolutely no hint of sarcasm.
You love it? God, I would become so depressed.
where’s your whimsy?
It’s a fair point, but I think I gained some empathy and perspective on my own problems. Maybe it does something dark to a person but I’m definitely fairly confident.
I get to look at my phone and read interesting things/do Duolingo. The stress of a car would be similar or worse I think.
Humanity is interesting, warts and all
Sounds like a very good way of seeing it.
I try to not be sad about this world but often fail.
I find that driving through traffic leaves me very depressed and often angry. I’d like a few more options for my depression at least.
Some people are not built for coliving on the same planet.
An entire international high-speed train was delayed for almost 2 hours because Karen got the police called over having too much foam in her beer.
OMG
You want to hear the story?
yup
I was seated near the restaurant wagon on an international train. I had my headphones on and wasn’t aware of what was going on, but suddenly there was a ruckus that got my attention.
A lady has gotten into an argument with a train employee about the beer to foam ratio in her cup. Apparently there was some name calling involved before I got to listen into the conversation, but she literally called for the manager. Eventually the police was called (which already meant delays for the train) and since it was basically the “border station”, the police told Karen that she had to get off the train if she wants to press charges. And then the strangest thing happened:
She just said no. She paid for her ticket, she’s not getting off … and the fucking police caved. They held the train and interviewed her on it. Why, I do not know. It seems so insane.
I was so lucky that I could get out of the train at the station we stopped and get home at a reasonable time … but I never wanted to throw beer at someone’s face that much. Fuck this lady in particularity …
Nuts
A woman jumped while I was waiting for the train at my home station. It wasn’t pretty…
I’m so sorry you had to see that.
I saw a guy jump off a bridge when I was driving by. He didn’t break the ice and was laying in the middle of the river for quite some time as first responders had to get down the icy/snowy cliffs.
A singing and commentating bus driver! :-)
Baltimore Maryland train, some man thought I was so pretty(?) he handed me a $5 bill on his way out of the train. I looked at him like , “WTF?!” wordlessly declined his offering, he looked offended, and he left. That’s the weirdest thing I’ve personally experienced or seen on public transportation but I’ve seen a lot weirder things online. Like a couple months ago that man who fucking STABBED some young lady in the neck & MURDERED her 🤦🏼♀️
Someone called the bus driver “woman” for being sensitive during an argument so he called the police on them.
I find it funny how men will call women emotional but then we get ol yam tits and his pedo gooner squad with that angry ass hobbit and they have thinner skin than a pudding cup. Going into bitch-ass screeching queen of hearts mode whenever someone hints at them being exactly what they are.
I took the Bart in San Francisco every day for a decade, definitely saw some things. Saw a guy take a shit between the cars. Saw someone flip off the rails and kick someone in the head.
The one I remember the most was during a busy morning commute, I had my headphones on and I see this older guy pushing through people to follow this younger woman. She kept moving up and down the train to get away from him. After seeing this a few times, I stepped in front of him and told him “I don’t know what’s going on, but she clearly doesn’t want to be near you, so you gotta leave her alone”. He snapped at me screaming that it was his daughter and I need to stay the fuck out of their family situation. Myself and a few others blocked him, and he got off at the next stop. When I asked the woman if she was okay, she said she had no relation to the guy and had never seen him. Scary stuff all around. Im assuming he was mentally ill and had some previous drama about losing his daughter, and something triggered in his brain when he saw that woman. I thought for sure I was gonna get stabbed that day, and if the train wasn’t so crowded I think things would’ve ended a lot differently.
I had a similar thing on a bus once, all the seats were full so there was a line of people standing down the middle aisle of the bus. There was an old homeless dude on one side and a young woman on the other side, and he was hassling her and kept reaching across the aisle and touching her, which she obviously didn’t want. The guy standing up nearest to them kept stopping the guy and sort of swatting his hand away whenever he tried. Then the bus stopped and the guy turned to the guy behind him and was like “This is my stop, you got this?” and then the next guy moved forward and started telling the guy off and swatting his hand away.
After that it just kept moving like a production line of us telling this creeper off and pushing his hand away. It didn’t seem to matter if those of us in the line were men or women, he was just really obsessed with this one person. So at least five people in front of me did it, then I did it, then the guy behind me took over when I had to leave. I have no idea how long it went on for lol.
The one that stands out is someone on a call in a packed bus who started shouting “I didn’t tell no one you got raped in prison!” into the phone repeatedly.
They made themselves a liar. Felt bad for whoever was on the other side of the line.
He was probably pretending to talk to someone on the phone. But there was no one on the phone. He was senile. Because that’s the demographic we’re dealing with here.
It was a woman in her 20s who had been having a much more minor argument on the phone up to that point. I’ve seen the scenario you’re talking about too, but this one seemed like an actual phone call.
Then again, who knows?
