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I would love to use a backpack more when travelling, to keep my hands free. But the number of times I get swiped by other people's backpacks (or see other people getting hit) makes me wonder if it isn't just plain antisocial.

As they unpacked the man's backpack hit a ~4 year old girl right in the face. He clearly didn't feel a thing. She fell to the ground screaming and he finally turned around and berated the girl's mother, in French, for not controlling her little girl's behaviour.

The mother was shocked, and I think didn't speak French. I said to the guy "You just smashed the girl in the face with your backpack" and he kind of shrugged and carried on filling up more space than he had paid for in the overhead lockers.

Last week I was on a bus between towns and for 15 minutes I was regularly bashed on the arm by the backpack of a teenage girl who insisted on wearing just one strap, so that with every slight swing of the bus the other side swung around.