Asking about the grossest thing you guys have ever seen on public transportation may have been a mistake, because I’ve been forced to read many a tale about public defecation and urination, among other bodily fluid-based adventures. If that tickles your fancy, then hang on for our readers’ tales of the most disgusting things they’ve ever witnessed on planes, trains, and so forth.

RobTheStreet has seen some shit:

When I lived in NYC, around early 2004, I was taking the L train back from Lorimer to the East Village. On the same train car, no exaggeration: Homeless man walks into center of the L train, drops his pants and takes a shit on the subway car floor. No one even batted an eyelash.

On the other side of the car, a very drunk girl with a very unhelpful boyfriend wakes from her drunken slumber to vomit in her purse. But it wasn’t just a little puke. It was the most vomit I’ve ever seen come out of a single person.

We were only missing someone pissing somewhere on the car to complete the trifecta.


CampCrean was shit upon:

I was in Atlanta on business and took MARTA instead of renting a car. I had the worst head cold of my life and could not smell anything. I was coughing up a storm. About 5 minutes in to my ride I noticed people were staring at me strange, almost with fear. This went on for about two stops until a nice Asian lady came up to me. “You have to get up!” she said. I was so confused and tired that I just stared. Then I felt it. A wet sensation on my right leg. Someone who had sat next to me had unleashed a diarrhea hell storm in the bucket seat next to mine. It had been sloshing on the seat all over my pants and shoes. I instantly panicked and puked all over myself. An older black gentleman just looked at me from a few seats away and said “Jesus. Lord Jesus.” I got a cab half way back to my hotel when he finally kicked me out over the smell. I walked 4.5 miles the rest of the way and got in the shower with all of my clothes on. Don’t ride MARTA in Atlanta.


Let’s break for a vomit orgasm. structengr:

San Antonio: VIA Bus(local bus company name) from Alamodome Christmas 2005(?) New Orleans Saints v Detroit(?). When Saints were temporary the San Antonio Saints because Tom Benson is a resident. You park off site and VIA takes you to the Dome.

Full bus after game, girl sitting on top of guy at almost back of bus. Didn’t know at first but they were having sex. She has an orgasm but instead of screaming/moaning, she drunkenly pukes on the person in front of her. How do we know she had an orgasm? It was a quiet ride and everyone looked because she said “OH GAWDDDDD YE-BLARGHGHGHSH”

The poor lady in front of her realizes the stink she just got covered in and throws up. Drunk girl stood up as she puked and everyone sees her sex partners dick. Had to ride in the smell 10 miles in traffic to the Park & Ride location.


Shitting on trains is not exclusive to humans. Drugstoreblonde:

Years ago when I was living and working in SLC, UT, I would take the train to my job in the exurbs outside the city. One day a woman got on board with her ancient-looking Irish Setter. Not 60 seconds later and still minutes before the next stop, the Irish Setter took a shit in the middle of the train. The smell was horrifying. And the stink wave travelled faster than sound. There’s something nearly telepathic that occurs in moments like this. Somehow, in less than 10 seconds, virtually everyone in the car (maybe 9-feet wide x 300-feet long) understood what had happened. Worse, the shit was pretty viscous, and fanning out towards the middle of the train like a centrifuge. At the next stop, the woman and her dog got off. Everyone else (including me) transferred cars. The next four stops, I watched people step in and, once the stink wave hit them, flee for the lives out.

I’ve lived in Berlin for a while now, and I’ve never seen something nearly as memorably-gross as that since.


Now let us transition to pee. YourTeamSucks:

My friends and I were on the light rail train in Minneapolis after a long night of drinking. We were going from downtown to the Mall of America, which was walking distance to our hotel. It’s about a 35 minute trip and one guy had to pee in a bad way. He happened to have a small ice-mountain water bottle with him, so he drunkenly stumbled to the back of the train car, unzipped, and proceeded to pee in the bottle. The amount of pee in his body far exceeded the capacity of the bottle, and we just hear him yell “Fuck it!” as he dropped the bottle full of piss (which spilled everywhere), collapsed onto a seat, and just laid back laughing and pissing all over himself. He kept laughing harder and harder throughout the whole thing and a fountain of piss just kept erupting from where he was sitting. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the image of it.


And getting peed on, via Mike H:

back in 2014 I was coming home from work at 59th street and decided to take the 1 downtown. it was about 8 in the evening so the trains were pretty packed and I couldn’t see a car that wasn’t standing room only and even then would only fit someone with a 20 inch waist. but to my luck a mostly empty car pulled up right in front of me with seats (this should have been my first warning) and I get on and sat next to this tiny guy wearing a hat. immediately upon sitting down, a woman yells at me from down the car that this dude is dangerous and took a swing at a guy. I get up and move down the car to a seat next to her and she tells me that cops are waiting for him at 42nd street (2 stations away).

the doors close and we start down toward 50th street. in the tunnel the guy gets up and heads to the door making me think that he knows the cops are waiting for him and is going to make his getaway, but no. looking at the whole car, the guy unzips his pants, pulls out his junk, and starts peeing on the door hitting people on either side of him with rebounding urine. the whole car clears to both ends leaving a no mans land in the middle. he’s still peeing when we pull into 50th street and the doors open. right outside the doors is a guy in a suit who’s directly in the stream. HIS LEG GOT PEED ON!!! and this guy in the suit looks defeated and slinks off (probably to go jump off the tallest building he could find, I would) and the drunk guy is still peeing. the doors close and he is still going, we’re in the tunnel between 42nd and 50th and he’s still peeing. the whole car is watching him pee in morbid fascination until the conductor comes out and shoves the dude into a seat and tells him to wait for the cops. we all left the train at 42nd brothers in pee soaked arms


Now for blood. Grossed Out In Philly:

City Hall station in Philly is the nastiest. It smells like death and is full of the worst behavior on the BSL. One day a lady got off carrying her bag on the way home from work with a cell phone to her ear. I guess she couldn’t make it to wherever she was going or she just wanted to treat us to a show. She leaned against a column, squated a bit, and slid a bloody tampon out from under her skirt. She dropped it to the floor with a squishy thud and proceeded to piss all over the platform. That’s right. Not in a corner or under the stairs. Right on the fucking platform. All without stopping her conversation on her cell. She popped another one in and went on her way.


Now for vomit. Samuel Wadhams:

One time in college I woke up hungover to go to my internship. Hopping on a crowded D train, I moved towards an open space at the end of the car. Reaching it, a woman grabbed my arm and pointed to a huge pile of vomit that I otherwise would not, in my state, have noticed. I pressed back into the crowd and took in my nauseated commute.

When I left that night, I walked down into the subway, waited for the D train, and sat down directly across from the very same pile of puke. It must have been all over the city.


Now for a spit/vomit combo. TheButcher:

I (too) was riding the L train one warm Summer morning on my way to work. It was as average a morning as could be with a full load of people on that particular car. Directly to my right was an elderly lady who was probably around 75 years old. Across from me was a Latin family with four children, the youngest being around 2. What happened next was so unexpected and so quick that it still disturbs me to the very core of my being.

The Latin family was not paying attention to their young two year old daughter, but I was watching her as she tried to keep herself entertained amidst the crowded train car. I noticed that she had found a fast food cup tucked next to the seats where here family was sitting. To my horror she put the straw to her mouth and started sucking down whatever was left in the abandoned cup. However, I noticed that what was coming out of the straw into her mouth was a very dark and bizarre looking liquid. When she pulled the straw from her lips with a disgusted look on her face there was a trail of goo and dark residue. I instantly knew what was happening from playing baseball for many years...she had found a dip cup.

The father of the little girl grabs the cup out of her hand and puts his hand to her mouth as she spits up what was left in her mouth. My stomach begin to writhe and to my dismay the elderly woman next to me had seen exactly what I had just witnessed and (god love her) began vomiting into her purse because she had a soul and did not want her own vomit to spew all over the standing passengers.

At the next stop I ran out of the train and ran as far as I could from what I had just witnessed.


Let’s end on a triple threat of fluids. HighAndTight:

My three most memorable are from my first year, before I became an inured and jaded New Yorker.

1) A way-too-drunk girl vomited on the floor of the PATH back to Jersey from the Halloween Parade, slipped and fell right into the puddle of sick, and then got it all over the boyfriend helping her up.

2) I used to live near Brooklyn College, the last stop on the 2 line*, and would often find myself standing for half an hour or more in the middle of the night at the forward end of the Atlantic/Pacific platform. For weeks I watched the corpse of a huge, train-decapitated rat swell larger and larger with trapped gas as it rotted.

3) I once found myself, in a fit of desperation, in the bathroom at that same station. Next to the filthy toilet in the filthy stall, someone had carefully set a one of those four-slider White Castle boxes, brimming over with liquid shit.

*I had not yet learned that Newkirk (Philip J. Fry’s stop!) was a longer walk but a faster trip.


Image via Getty