After years of discussion, debates and all sorts of measures to try to ensure civility, priority seating on public transportation remains a contentious issue.
It exploded again on Monday after a video of a woman pulling a younger woman’s hair as she dragged her off a priority seat and assaulted her went viral, the third such spat to make the news in the past month.
In the video, the assailant asks the younger woman to yield her seat to an elderly man, but is rebuffed, whereupon she pulls out what appears to be a pink disability card and launches her attack.
As usual, Taiwan’s industrious netizens located the woman in the viral video on Facebook and flooded her Facebook page with angry posts, leading her to defend her actions by saying that she could not bear to watch someone who “did not appear to be feeling unwell” sit when there was an elderly man on the train, and that the young woman accused her of being a “morality crusader” (正義魔人).
It turns out that the young woman was suffering from tendinitis and needed the seat.
In another incident last week, a woman who was having her menstrual period sat in a priority seat, leading an elderly man sitting next to her to question her right to use the seat, even though there was reportedly no one else in need nearby.
The man continued to harangue the woman even after she explained why she took the seat.
Condemning such violence aside, people need to stop such vigilante behavior on public transportation.
Such actions have already turned a simple, well-intentioned concept into a system of fear and intimidation, where no healthy person — even older ones — would consider sitting in a priority seat without a good, visible reason, even if they are feeling ill or are simply tired, which defeats the purpose of having priority seats in the first place.
The fear and inhibitions about using such seats is clear, as they often remain empty even when a Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) train or a bus is packed.
Anyone not of the designated categories who dares sit in a priority seat is often at the very least glared at, and if someone who looks slightly in need gets on board, the situation can easily escalate into a confrontation.
Such vigilante behavior is unnecessary in a civil place like Taipei — anyone who has ridden the MRT knows that there are far more people willing to yield their seats than those who refuse to, often giving up their non-priority seats.
Those who do not often fail to notice because they are absorbed by their cellphones and a gentle reminder would suffice.
Users on Professional Technology Temple, the nation’s largest online bulletin board system, were eager to offer their thoughts when a post asked whether priority seating should be abolished.
The nation already went through this debate in 2016, when an online petition to abolish the seats within six days reached the threshold of 5,000 signatures required for the government to consider the appeal.
Eliminating priority seating is unnecessary as well as impractical, as it would require amending laws and replacing the seats.
The government has far more important problems, and it is not the authorities’ fault that the system has ended up like this.
The entire culture behind priority seating needs to change — on both sides. To break this absurd cycle of fear, people not in need should try sitting in the priority seats when there is no one in need around, while would-be vigilantes should try to assess the situation first, instead of lashing out. It is simply about being civil, which is the whole purpose of these seats.
This is one case where it is ridiculous to turn to the government for a solution.
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