Priority seats: at what point does one become eligible?

As my years have advanced, I have to understand that others may view me as a member of that group who deserve special treatment.   When that special treatment results in reduced cost cinema seats, I’m quite willing to accept the classification.  If I receive free pharmacy prescriptions because I’m over the age of 60, that doesn’t seem to be too much of a cross to bear.

However, when I was first offered a seat on the tube by someone who appeared not so very much younger than me, I was (inwardly) affronted.  Did I not bound up the excruciatingly long escalator from the Central Line to the Metroplitan Line at Liverpool Street every weekday morning, leaving younger travellers in my wake?  Have you not seen me racing from the Circle Line to the Metroplitan Line at Baker Street?  How dare you!  However, the offer of a seat in the usually packed, sweaty, airless Central Line cars is too much to refuse, and I overcame my effrontery, allowed myself to look older than I felt and sat down.

Did that one act of ‘helplessness’ affect my better judgement?  As a person who has been accepted as one ‘less able to stand’, have I now decided that I qualify for the ‘disabled, pregnant or less able to stand’ seats?  Just how ‘less able’ am I?  Clearly, the priority has to be disabled (permanently or temporarily), followed closely by pregnant.  But is there a pecking order for limited ability to stand? And once I decide that another passenger has greater inability to stand than I, should the whole carriage shuffle around and reorder themselves, offering a seat to the next less able to stand?

I am ashamed to say that today, I manoeuvred myself into a ‘less able to stand’ seat in front of a considerably older and considerably less able to stand gentleman.  He even had a walking stick (which I had previously noted he didn’t use along the platform, although he did have a bit of a shuffling gait and a slightly odd arm – in hindsight, probably the victim of a stroke).  Elderly gentleman stared at me and, aghast, a young woman in the opposite ‘less able to stand’ seat gave up her position.  For the two or three following stations they both huffed and stared at me – a ‘perfectly capable of standing’ passenger.  Wait a minute, she wasn’t disabled or pregnant, and she was far more capable of standing than me!  And they departed after two and three stations, whilst I was committed to a journey of nineteen!  Surely I qualified for the ‘less able to stand’ seat.

No, to be quite honest, I didn’t and hope I won’t qualify for some years to come.

Sorry, elderly and less able to stand gentleman at Bond Street.