The LIRR and Etiquette

For those of you from out of town, the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) - one of the oldest in the country, by the way - provides rail service between Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens and Long Island. With a long (by American standards) and glorious (according to railroad standards) history, the LIRR has heavily influenced the growth of Long Island's communities and economies.

However valuable may be the (pricey) service which our local railroad provides - and thank the unions for the pricey part - there are certain areas which do not pertain to the operation of a railroad.

Those who live on the Island and use the LIRR are most certainly familiar with the quite frequent etiquette messages, delivered via loudspeaker on platforms, on trains and in stations. Because of the collective lapse in manners in our society, folks are becoming increasingly rude in their behavior. While I laud the railroad folks for addressing this problem, the "Clean Train Campaign" - ongoing for several years now - is assuredly not the solution, and is having no visible effects.

Here's why...

The ill-mannered folks who did not learn from or listen to their parents, teachers, and other authority figures during their formative years will certainly not listen to such instruction as adults - especially as spoken by celebrities like Alec Baldwin and Al Roker.

Further, the folks who have good manners get annoyed at being reminded to behave as they already do. They've been through school and got the message, and each reminder makes them feel like children.

In a similar vein, gun control laws are usually not effective because criminals by definition do not obey laws, leaving good citizens hamstrung - or at least incommoded in their quest for a self-defensive weapon.

The point is, since there is no real target group for these messages, JUST DEEP SIX 'EM!