The thrills and rewards of travel far outweigh its drawbacks, but there’s no doubt we all experience some groan-worthy moments during our trips. This is especially true when it comes to transportation, where we’re confined to a limited space with other passengers for hours at a time. Small annoyances are often amplified by lack of sleep, delays, language barriers, and other byproducts of travel. To find out what irks travelers the most when it comes to flying, public transportation, and ridesharing, Genfare surveyed 2,000 Americans who fly at least twice per year.
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Survey Reveals Travelers’ Top Transportation Annoyances
Even frequent travelers consider air travel a necessary evil rather than a process to be enjoyed, so it’s no surprise that there are many nuisances associated with flying. Ranked most annoying — with 54% of the vote — was getting your seat kicked by other passengers. Crying children came in second with 27% of the vote, just ahead of body odor, over-talkative passengers, inattentive parents, drunk passengers, and getting your seat pulled back.
To manage these aggravations, many travelers will kick off their shoes and recline their seats, though by doing so, they might inadvertently be turning into one of “those people.” Thirty-six percent say it’s not okay to remove your shoes on a plane and that reclining airplane seats should be banned.
Once the plane lands, that’s unfortunately when many travelers’ transportation woes are just beginning. On public transportation, 54% of respondents said that other passengers talking loudly on the phone was their number one irritation. It was also a top annoyance in ridesharing environments with 32% claiming to be frustrated when the driver uses a cell phone. Other public transportation aggravations include body odor (41%), passengers playing music without headphones (29%), taking up seats with luggage (28%), and failing to give up a seat for the elderly (22%). When it comes to ridesharing, aggressive driving topped the list with 44%, followed by dirty cars (31%), braking too hard (29%), and over-talkative drivers (28%) rounding out the top five. 