‘We’ve lost a basic sense of politeness’: UK readers reveal daily reality of public transport

Regular users detail their frustrations – and question whether Andy Burnham’s crackdown on antisocial behaviour will actually work

Andy Burnham has announced a campaign against nuisance behaviour on public transport, including “headphone dodgers” who play loud music.

“We’ve all been on the train when someone starts blasting music or videos from their phone,” Burnham said in a statement. “It gets on your nerves and can quickly spoil the journey.”

Six people share their views on Burnham’s new campaign and recount their experiences of antisocial behaviour on public transport.

I live in London and commute daily on the tube. Even yesterday, sitting next to me was a guy playing videos out loud, which is the most common issue. I’m interested in what has caused a sudden change to our social contract that allows people the psychological safety to completely disregard others. It’s not top of the list of worst behaviour; it’s in the same bracket as leaning on poles so no one can hold them, leaving your bag on the only seat left, leaning your arm on the fold up chair, or man-spreading. It mostly saddens me that we have lost a basic sense of politeness.

I’m not sure Andy Burnham’s announcement will do anything. If you’re already playing very loud videos in public, presumably you don’t care very much about what you should be doing. You never really see police or “safety officers”, so who would enforce it? I’m glad they aren’t making the tube workers or bus drivers try to enforce it though; it would make their days hell. Claire, 41, London

I get the train five nights a week to work and nine times out of 10, there is somebody taking phone calls on speakerphone, blasting videos or music, even in the so-called quiet carriage. Everyone’s too scared to ask them to move to a different carriage or turn it down, so it’s a regular occurrence. It makes my journey a nightmare. No one enforces anything. I doubt this new law will change this. It should include phone calls too and people putting calls on loudspeaker. It doesn’t go far enough. Margaret, 49, Weston-super-Mare

I think this is a great step to protect public spaces as shared spaces, and to show people the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. The last time I asked somebody who was playing reels aloud to use their headphones I was called “a piece of shit” and decided not to ask anybody that again. But commuters shouldn’t have to put up with it. Of course, the question is whether and how this will be enforced consistently. Ben Ellis, 38, Edinburgh

I’ve always challenged this behaviour by asking people if they have headphones. If they say no, I ask if they can turn the sound off. Most of the time this is OK, but I have had repeated incidents where people refuse. I’m stubborn and confident, so I’ll explain that it is not normal or socially acceptable to subject other people to jarring video scrolling. Only once in this situation did a train guard ask someone playing football at full volume to turn it off. And I can’t blame them. You’d be arguing with idiots for 90% of your shift if you did.