Who Gets The Arm Rest On The Tube?

James Drury
By James Drury Last edited 111 months ago
Who Gets The Arm Rest On The Tube?

Where to put your arms? Photo by murphyz in the Londonist Flickr pool.

You know the situation: you're sat on the tube comfortably reading your book, when someone gets on and sits next to you. You both then spend the entirety of your journeys passive-aggressively duelling with your elbows for rights over the arm rests. It's enough to send even the most placid person's stress levels as high as The Shard, but what's the protocol? Should you, as the first person sat there, have all rights to the arm rests? Or, do you adopt the "dinner table side plate" rule, of everyone gets the arm rest to their left (the person by the glass panel at the door can lean on that). Perhaps it depends whether you're left-handed or right-handed? Or maybe it's simply a case of 'might is right' — whoever wins the elbow war, wins the arms rest?

We want to know what you think — fill in the poll below, we'll tally up the results and report back.

EDIT: We've totted up the votes — you can see the results here.

Last Updated 05 December 2014