Interesting. The Washington Post had a front page story about seat hogs on Metro – people who take up two seats even when people have to stand. These people either pretend they don’t see the people standing or get aggressive and rude when asked to move.

The disdain – or even outright venom – from the able-bodied towards the article is rather perplexing to me. As someone who can’t stand for very long on Metro and who has had a ridiculously large number of ugly encounters with seat hogs, I have to say that I think the people who don’t get it out to spend a day riding the Metro with someone who can’t stand. Maybe it would open their eyes a little bit. Maybe the ones who are most vocal about assuming the problem lies with the people who can’t get a seat are themselves seat hogs.

I doubt an article will shame the unrepentant seat hogs into being more considerate, anyone that aggressive about not sharing a seat isn’t going to be fazed by a newspaper article. That may sound pessimistic, but I’ve been riding Metro for over 20 years and this problem just gets worse and worse and I feel like over time these people have learned that there are no consequences to their refusal to share a seat or give up a disabled-access seat so it doesn’t seem like the situation has any chance or improving.