I had a similar experience in Zurich. It was at the main
railway station downtown. While I was waiting in line with a couple dozen people in the tourist info office, several men/women pushed/shoved and got to the front of the line. People waiting in line didn't make any verbal complaints, but looked at the tourist office agents.... what really surprised us was when the agents said "next" the line cutters went up and the agents didn't even seem to care... then some of the people started a shouting match with the line cutters and the agents....

However, I have also seen a lot of line-cutting in the USA. Mostly it was in fast food restaurants in Washington, DC. One example is the Wendy's near the XM Radio headquarter on New York Avenue. People there don't seem to care about waiting in line.... and since I was the only non-African Americans theres, I chickened out and said not a word. (it was 2AM and the other patrons were all ganster-wannabe types, and even they didn't do a thing about a bunch of other patrons who cut in line...)

While it is flattering that so many think the UK is good at queuing, you can't have taken a London bus recently. Queues are largely a thing of the past, replaced with a small scrum.

Swanhunter's thoughts echo mine - in the years I've been visiting the UK,
things have gone from moderately orderly (with people walking on the left,
as they ought) to a situation that is perhaps less orderly than in the States,
which is to say fairly disorderly in a lot of places. I attribute all of this to the
malign influence of television.

I've been to Amsterdam several times now and have always observed people forming an semi-orderly queue when boarding the trams around town. I just file into the line whenever I happen to arrive.

If someone cut directly in front of me though, I would confront them no matter who they are!

Japanese commuter trains and subways are pretty funny for the queueing question. People dutifully line up neatly on the platform. Then, when the train arrives and the doors open, they all charge the door in a mad rush.

Once on a STN-SXF flight I was waiting in a queue with barriers, and an older German woman went under the barriers to the space right in front of me. I was astounded but didn't think it was worth saying anything for one person. Then her husband did the same thing.

Me: Excuse me, there's a queue.
Him: I'm just joining my wife.
Me: She jumped the queue too!

It was his "explanation" that was the amazing part, since he watched her jump the queue immediately before!

another site

http://www.rivelazioni.com/mm/bozzetto/eu-it.shtml

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It's easier to compress the crowd if you rush.

Had a little bit of a run in with an American in a lift queue at a ski resort in Colorado. This suprised me, since lift lines in the USA tend to be a lot better that in Europe (where the bigger the elbows you have, the more likely to are to ever get to the front of the queue... )

We hit the queue at a BAD time - a load of racers trying to get back to the top for another run, several ski school classes etc. There was an "alternating" queueing system - except the ropes did not tighly enforce this (unfortunately!). An alternating queue for a ski lift is when a series of queueing branches meet, a set of people (3 people for a 3 person lift) will alternate (take turns) from each branch. We pretty much let the racers and ski school people get through (about 30 of them...), but had to virtually FORCE our way through to alternate in with the other branch of the queue (they just wouldn't let our branch of the queue alternate in). The guy behind me grumbled to his wife about people "pushing in". I turned round and said "it is an alternating queue!", which he had a big grumble about...

This really annoyed me, I am British and very up on "queueing". I do it and am often overly pollite (letting racers and ski school go first, in this example), it really hacks me off when people wont alternate (in an alternating queue) and then have a go at me for pushing in (when I have no choice but to force the alternation myself)

Boo

Are you kidding? That's how people learn to be civilized people. If someone breaks in front of you you should scream, curse and otherwise make your displeasure known.

Cutting in line/jumping the queue annoys me to no end, so I will almost always say something (don't worry, I don't mind ). I will also let some of the hard-core cutters go, but making sure that they're wait in front of me is as embarassing as possible (hopefully to prevent them from doing it again).

That being said, I will "adapt" to the current situation. I was at SGN boarding an OZ flight, and some Korean businessmen decided to bypass the line of 100 that had already formed to enter the departure area (I was about 10 back, having waited for 45 minutes). Rather than speak out (because seriously, even the Vietnamese don't do that), I decided to take matters into my own hands, made my way forward, and blocked the cutters with an elbow and a hard stare. I guess they understood they weren't dealing with a "normal" pax, so they backed off.

When I got in, I exchanged comments with a SGN worker there, who rolled his eyes and smiled when I asked, "Is it always like this on OZ flights?"

Lesson: Stand up for yourself! And do it in a way that the others will understand.

I can sort of see how queues make no sense in some cases. Say you arrived on a flight in PPT and you're waiting to get through immigration...since you all arrived on a plane at the same time, what's the point of a queue? Usually queues are an issue of fairness for the earliest to arrive. By enforcing a queue, you are creating a game whereby the fastest walkers get rewarded.

The other problem develops in "queue cultures" when you have multiple queues with single servers at each queue (by far the dumbest way to organize a queue). When a new server opens up, all bets are off, people from the back of the line run to the new server and form a line...totally neglecting the real reason for the queue (those that have waited the longest get to go first).

Queue or not, it's about not being a selfish pig.

Well, how else do you organize the lines at supermarkets/stores?? The proper way is to invite the next guest in the long line to be first... of course, this doesn't always happen.

Along the same lines, there are some people don't understand that there is only ONE like for all the counters... I love the hoverers who feign innocence when they stumble up to the next available person (like at a fast food place or even Starbucks sometimes).