Public transport unwritten rules that got me side-eyed

Escalator sides are sacred. Stand on the wrong one and you'll feel a whole city's worth of quiet fury behind you. I learned within about two commutes.

The phone-call thing surprised me most. On the train here it's near-silent, and my normal-volume call earned me several looks. Now I text or step off at the platform.

Priority seats are taken very seriously where I am — even on an empty carriage, sitting in one and not leaping up instantly is a faux pas. Also: let people off before you get on, which apparently isn't universal.

Eating on the metro got me a genuine telling-off from a stranger. Back home it's totally normal. Every city has that one rule that feels arbitrary until you realise everyone else absorbed it as a child.

OP here — glad it's not just me getting the silent treatment. The 'let people off first' one seems obvious yet I still see newcomers barge in. It's the little choreography that marks you as local or not.

Backpacks. Take it off and hold it low in a crowded carriage, or you'll be that person clearing a path with your bag and not noticing. Took a polite tap on the shoulder for me to clock it.

Validating your ticket is the one that can actually cost you. I assumed tapping in was enough, got a fine, and learned there was a second machine I'd walked past daily. Check the exact ritual, not just the fare.

The seat-hierarchy thing is so real. There's an order to who sits where that nobody writes down. I just watch and copy now — safest strategy for all of this honestly.