Elderly passenger leaves woman in tears after 'kicking her out of front bus seat'
A woman has explained how she was left in tears after an elderly passenger grabbed her arm and demanded she give up her seat on the bus.
While in general it's considered to be a polite gesture to offer your seat to an elderly passenger on a busy bus, especially if you're sitting in one of the 'priority' seats, it doesn't give people the right to start dragging other passengers onto their feet.
One woman had an absolutely horrendous experience recently after she was grabbed on the bus by an elderly passenger who demanded she give up her seat.
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Taking to Reddit, the woman explained that she got 'easily sick' on journeys and always liked to sit at the front of a bus if she was on one.
Posting in the r/AutisticPride group, she said that as soon as she sat down 'an old lady grabbed me by the arm' hard enough to cause pain and wanted her spot at the front of the bus.
This was despite the rest of the bus being empty and there being plenty of other places for fellow passengers to sit, so it wasn't as thought the elderly passenger was in danger of having to stand for their journey.
She explained that this was particularly distressing for her as she very much disliked being touched and felt she was 'put in such an uncomfortable position' where she couldn't say no to giving her seat to the old lady.
In the end the woman 'ended up moving because I didn't want to cause more of a scene than it already was' but said she was 'still in shock' and 'still in tears'.
Plenty of commenters sympathised with her situation and reassured her that she had 'every reason to be upset' because she'd been grabbed and 'old or not, it's still assault'.
The woman also said she was 'not healthy and cannot stand that much' but looks like she's 'fit and a teenager' so people may make assumptions.
Many people struggle with invisible illnesses which mean they really need a seat even if they don't look like it, to the point that some public transport services offer badges for those who want to communicate to fellow passengers that they need to sit down.
She also explained that 'several seats for the elderly with a ramp and a special stop button' right behind where the front seat she had wanted to sit in.
On other occasions she's said she's 'had old people ask for my seat when I was in crutches' but in those situations there were other passengers on the bus to step in.
Others expressed disbelief that the driver didn't do anything, while more empathised and said they'd been in similar situations where 'older people tell me to move even when there are seats available right nearby'.
Joe Harker