Last updated April 12, 2019
A woman in the United States who blathered away loudly on her old cell phone for no less than 16 hours on a train says she feels “disrespected” after having been ejected and arrested by police. Lakeysha Beard was charged with disorderly conduct after getting involved in a loud argument with other passengers.
The argument started when the woman refused to stop using her cell phone even after staff on the train made repeated requests for passengers to not use them. Beard had been on the phone talking loudly for around 16 hours straight since boarding the Amtrak train in Oakland in California when other passengers finally had enough and told her to stop, at which point she became aggressive. Interviewed by KATU.com, the woman admitted to using her old cell phone but seemed to have no comprehension of the irritation she had caused her fellow passengers, commenting that she did not “understand why she had to be escorted off the train”. Amtrak has a specific policy relating to loud talking which disturbs the peace of other passengers, particularly when it comes to the kind of “quiet cars” that Beard was on.
“Too many people don’t exercise basic courtesy when it comes to using their phones,” says social etiquette instructor John Blackwood. “It says that you’re only thinking of yourself and that you are only aware of what you need and what you are doing and you are a less considerate person.”