Have a Pet Peeve? Take It Online

Jan. 20, 2007 — -- If bad driving, shouting into cell phones and unruly kids drive you crazy, advice columnist Amy Alkon is your ally. She is one of many frustrated observers who are taking their complaints about rude behavior to the Web.

Amy's pet peeve is people who shout into their cellular phones in public.

"You cannot go into a restaurant or café or pub without being forced to join into someone's life and in the most boring way," she said. "No one ever tells you anything you want to know."

Instead of just blogging about loud talkers and bad drivers, Alkon actually "outs" them on her Web site, advicegoddess.com. With her digital camera at her side she snaps pictures of ordinary people committing offensive acts. Call her the manners paparazzi.

She caught one mom changing an infant's dirty diaper on a restaurant table and took a picture of another woman who drove right through a stop sign.

But Alkon doesn't stop there. She'll post nearly any information she can get about the offender. When one man spoke loudly on his phone at an L.A.-area Starbucks and relayed his telephone number to the person on the other end, Alkon jotted it down on a pad. She later called "Barry" to warn him to be more considerate next time.

"People need to understand that they're in a shared space," she said.

Not everyone appreciates her advice.

"People are terrible sometimes," she said. "People will say, 'Well, it's a public space,' and I say, 'Yes, it is. That means you share it with other people, so you have to be mindful of their needs too. If you're at home you can shout and be rude as you want."

Unlike years ago, when a gentle reminder to talk quietly would provoke a sincere apology, people today are likely to respond with a nasty retort, she said.Alkon sees it as her civic duty to change people's behavior one incident at a time.

"Just to say to someone, 'Careful you could kill someone,' they're like, 'Yeah, whatever,'" she said. "But once I put their picture up on my site, it's not just you I'm deterring from that behavior again. It's other people."