Hundreds of train ‘seat robbers’ hit in Chinese blitz on bad behaviour
- Railway police say 452 passengers have been detained for ‘hogging’ other travellers’ seats
Chinese railway police detained 452 train travellers for commandeering other passengers’ seats in a clampdown on bad behaviour on the rail system, state broadcaster China Central Television reported on Sunday.
Officers investigated 2,856 cases of disruption of public order on the rail system in the clampdown triggered by a wave of public concern about seat robbers.
Chinese passenger suffers public shaming for ‘crime’ of taking someone else’s seat on a half-empty train
Recent cases have involved people refusing to consider the needs of other travellers. Rail officials said a drunk woman who occupied another person’s seat on December 1 was held for seven days by Beijing and Shanghai railway police after getting into a row with staff and other passengers .
That same week, a woman who occupied three seats on a row in a train cabin that was not assigned to her was ejected by police after several warnings and detained for five days.
Videos of “seat robbers” who refuse to sit in their assigned seats on crowded trains and who are rude to train staff have gone viral on social media websites.
In August, a doctoral student named Sun was named online and bombarded with hostile phone calls and social media messages after a video was posted of him refusing to vacate a woman’s seat on a high-speed train to Beijing.
Sun was forced to lock an online payment app on his phone after online vigilantes tried to access his account with his phone number, Beijing Youth Daily reported.