Woman kicked off train after 16-hour cell phone chat

reghakr

Essential Member
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Jan 26, 2009
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Erie, PA
It's curious to me that some people still think that cell phones are for talking to someone.

No, they're for playing games, checking in, and sending naked picture of yourself.

So how odd that one woman seems to have managed to talk on her own little device for 16 hours, while traveling from Oakland, Calif., to Salem, Ore.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Link Removed - Invalid URL that not everyone in the car in which she was sitting was entirely amused by her conversation. Oh, didn't I mention it? She was reportedly in the quiet car of an Amtrak train.



Lakeysha Beard ended up being escorted off the train by friendly Oregon police officers and charged with disorderly conduct.

It seems that several announcements from the train staff didn't quite do the trick of tearing her away from her cell phone. It seems that then she became embroiled in what was described by the police as a "verbal altercation" with other passengers, whose Sudoku games she had, perhaps, disturbed.

I haven't been on an Amtrak train for a while, but apparently they have cell phone charging stations, as well as no official policy on cell phone use.

Still, don't most humans know when they're getting on someone's nerves? Perhaps not in every case. As MSNBC reported, Beard herself felt "disrespected."

Can someone please invent a phone that drowns out the speaker's voice for everyone except the person at the other end of the call? That would surely be easier than social engineering.

Read more: Woman kicked off train after 16-hour cell phone chat | Technically Incorrect - CNET News
 
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A woman who was escorted off an Amtrak train by police last weekend after she allegedly refused to stop talking loudly on her cell-phone has the Internet cheering her fate.

Civilians and quiet-car champions are supporting her ejection for violating policy at high volume during the 16-hour journey. It doesn't help her cause that she became belligerent when confronted about it by one of her fellow passengers.


KOMO News Link Removed - Invalid URL by the incident, though passengers said it was Beard who was being rude by refusing to stop yapping while sitting in one of the train's designated quiet cars. She had not stopped talking since the train pulled out of Oakland, California, 16 hours before it reached Salem, Oregon, when a passenger confronted her about the talking. That's when Beard got "aggressive," Link Removed - Invalid URL and conductors stopped the train so that police could remove her and charge her with disorderly conduct.

Link Removed - Invalid URL when a group of passengers who rode the Philadelphia to D.C. route every morning asked if they could reserve a car where cell-phone loudmouths weren't welcome. Ever since, the rare havens of quiet have become a battlefield between silence-loving rule-followers and rebellious cell-phone addicts. Gawker Link Removed - Invalid URL that the cops who removed Beard from the train were heroes, and that Beard should be charged with "unspeakable crimes against humanity and sentenced to life on some distant planet where there are no reception bars, ever."

According toLink Removed - Invalid URL at The Huffington Post, 77 percent of people were happy the woman was hauled off the train. And CNN personality Link Removed - Invalid URL on his "ridiculist" last night, asking "What could someone possibly talk about for 16 hours?" He even compared being stuck on the train with a person who would do such a thing to the "fifth circle of hell."

The Internet is Link Removed - Invalid URL of Link Removed - Invalid URL of innocent people's quiet-car journeys being marred by loud passengers who ignore the rules. An Israeli blogger with a PhD in conflict resolution Link Removed - Invalid URL about the best way to get a fellow passenger to shut up without starting World War III. "Always assume the transgressor is ignorant, not arrogant. This way you won't feel wronged and can communicate your message with less contempt and hostility," he suggests.

Meanwhile writer Christopher Buckley, Link Removed - Invalid URL, wonders why there would be any confusion as to the correct behavior in that part of the train: "The Quiet Car does not hide its light under a bushel. Prominent and explicit signs hang from the ceiling at five-foot intervals. They declare, unequivocally, that NO CELL PHONES ARE PERMITTED and that conversation must be kept to a minimum and in hushed tones."

Link Removed - Invalid URL she appears to be quietly cooperating with the officers. You can watch, below:

 
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