SINGAPORE: When a Singaporean boarded the MRT at Punggol Station during peak hours, he was expecting the usual crowd—but what he wasn’t ready for was a queue-cutting showdown. In a post on r/SMRTRabak forum, he recalled, “There were long queues waiting for the next train… then this lady (in her 30s–40s) tries to squeeze ahead of me!”
He then, like a seasoned MRT warrior, deployed his classic “passive-aggressive but sensible” move: Standing closer to the person in front to block the would-be line cutter. And the tactic worked: “She got stuck by the door,” he wrote. “I felt the urge to look behind me, and the psycho lady was glaring at me, eyes wide, angry. I did my best to keep a blank face.”
The situation boiled over into a relatable rant: “Why are people so entitled? If you can’t follow rules properly, then don’t travel during peak hours. Better yet, don’t take the MRT at all!”
And Singaporeans in the comments didn’t hold back their emotions either. One said the seat-rushers have the same attitude as if they were in a life-or-death game: “Just like those who cut queue and rush onto the train just to grab a seat, as if they will die if they can’t get a seat.”
Another recounted a student trying to cut the queue at the bus interchange: “I pulled their bag, pointed to the back and said to queue up behind.”
Some weren’t shy about naming demographics, with one calling out “ALWAYS the older generation,” while another recounted an incident involving a mother-daughter pair who dashed past him to the train door.
Others noted this wasn’t just an MRT issue—buses were just as bad. “Some guy tried to squeeze past me to the exit before the bus stopped… I asked him to wait. And he straight up started to yell ‘stupid’ at me.”
Some framed the issue in philosophical terms: “When they have nothing else to say, they’ll just resort to ad-hominem attacks,” a commenter observed. “Or maybe they don’t have the capacity to understand,” he added.
But one reply summarised it best: “Dislike those who push themselves through as though they would win a million dollars by being the first one in.”
In a society obsessed with order and efficiency, the unspoken MRT etiquette is simple: Queue properly, wait your turn, and don’t act like you’re racing for gold at the Olympics.
Read related: ‘People who die-die want to be first to enter/exit the train’ — Singaporean asks, ‘Please help me understand why you do this?’
