I’ve been going to jon interviews this week which involves the joys of public transport (parking is far too much of a hassle in the city to drive in). We’re getting our first hot days of summer and I seem to keep lucking in to getting on trams, trains and/or buses with non-functioning air conditioning. Plus, in Melbourne the public transport is usually absurdly crowded.
Maybe they aren’t broken. Maybe it’s a deliberate plot. It could be that the government is conducting large-scale experiments to see how the populace will respond to being crushed into a small space while being subjected to high heat and humidity.
If that’s the case, you can suspend the experiments now. The results are in. People in that situation get pissed off.
Coming home yesterday I found myself stuck on the tram from hell. Literally, judging from the internal temperature. My mood had gotten progressively worse until it reached the point where I was planning the order in which I would kill people when I finally snapped. Hmmm, he looks easy… she’d be a pushover… I bet his head would pop right off… oooh, he looks tough, I’d better throw some frail bodies between me and him…
I was just about ready to put my plan into action when the tram passed a train station. I took a punt that a train would be less hellish and jumped ship. This turned out to be a good choice – the train was considerably less crowded.
There were a few seats empty in the vestibule of the train but somebody had a bike leaned up against them. These are the type of seat that flip up if nobody is sitting in them so they were flush with the wall, which doubtless seemed like a good thing to the bike owner. I thought I might actually sit in one of the seats that were designed with humans in mind rather than bikes. It seemed like a reasonable plan but it led to the exchange detailed in the following video:
Angry 365 Days a Year 
Damn straight us cyclists automatically have moral superiority!
You think we go through the hassle of getting our asses onto a pathetic little metal frame (in the deeps of winter over here, so it was -2 when I set off this morning) so we can simple save on petrol? No, we do it so we can feel smug and superior to all you car-travellers.
And given that cars are so ubiquitous we can safely assume that’s everyone else, so we’re superior to all of you fools dammit!
Mua-ha-ha. It’s hilerious. Right on brother. Oz you got ’em. They may talk about their green-peace superiority, but they will never talk about their stupidity. You got show ’em brother.
P.s. That little musical intro you had on the previous blog was pretty good 😉
I take the scooter everywhere. It’s damn fast. Faster than anything else on the road, including underground public transport.
We’re Sorry This Video Is No Longer Available….
I hope YouTube haven’t deleted it. I really could do with seeing an inconsiderate cyclist being dismembered right about now.
…and now it’s there
Ignore me :o/
It’s all part of the Labor virus. It began here in Sydney the moment the Olympics were over, and State Rail was sold to Railcorp by the state government. They left the public train system to rot for a decade, no effort to maintain infrastructure at all, so each morning train ride now, years later, may as well resemble a ride to Auschwitz each morning, with 6 car trains and overcrowded carriages (people standing in aisles, jostling for space). People here incited strike action, petitions and all sorts of things, and then they voted for the same state government/political party yet again!
Oh man…! That was priceless…! Tell you what, Mr. Angry, you’re a nice bloke. If it had been me, the bike would have been in 3 pieces, neatly stacked in his lap after that second comment… 🙂
i think you’re nuts 🙂
hey guess what, i saw a guy in his biking granduer who had leaned his bike against 3 or 4 priority seats. but the worst part was he was allowed to do that COZ there was signage permitting it. there was almost no where to sit for me… and i almost had a mr angry moment. crazy.