Flakes on a Train
posted by Frank Pasquale
The yammer-jammer I described over the weekend incites a spirited discussion at the NY Times letters page today. Here are two interesting responses:
I’m usually trying to read when someone near me starts talking on the phone and I can’t concentrate. (Why is it that people on the phone are so much louder than anyone else talking on the bus? Something about loss of inhibitions, I guess.) Anyway, I just start reading my book out loud. Loud enough so that I can hear myself over the cellphone talker. My favorite part is when the confronted cellphone talker replies, “Well, this is public space!” Since when did it become O.K. to be more obnoxious in public than you’d ever be in private?
Others are more direct:
[Someone the middle of the train] in which I was riding . . . . was blabbing loudly and nonstop on her cellphone. As my fellow riders rolled their eyes and gritted their teeth, I turned my head slightly over my shoulder and yelled (I have a pretty strong yell), “Shaddup already!” It not only had the intended effect, but it also was perfectly legal, and I saved the 200 bucks of a jammer.
Another writer suggests that “train conductors be empowered to issue a summons to the blabber-mouths.” But I have a sense that the wireless lobby may well get the FCC to preempt such laws. Who knows, perhaps it won’t be satisfied till retaliatory book readings and spirited “shaddup”s are banned as interference with the rights of the yellular.
November 6, 2007 at 7:58 am
Posted in: Current Events, Privacy, Property Law
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Responses (2)
Anon - November 6, 2007 at 10:53 am
What exactly is the problem here? It sounds like private enforcement of social norms (fancy academic speak for yelling) does a perfectly adequate job of shutting-up annoying cell phone users.
Your post about distracted drivers wreaking havoc on the roads is much more serious and compelling. Many cities, such as Chicago and New York, ban the use of cell phones in cars unless one uses a hands-free device. Its time others followed their lead.
Al Anon - November 7, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Not sure what bothers people so much about this. It seems it’s no different than two people having a conversation in your vicinity. Is the fact that the conversation you hear is one-sided, and that makes it annoying? Or more the fact that the person on the cell phone speaks at a higher volume?
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