"Senior" seats on public buses and trains

[pilot]

I was once riding a very busy subway with some employees when one of them jokingly said to me, "You know if you could learn how to look your age, you could sit there in that senior seat".

Seriously, have any of you ever invoked the senior seat privilege? Typically it would never occur to me to do so, but earlier this year, after I had been quite ill and was just too tired to stand, I asked a young person to give me their seat on a subway and they were very gracious to do so immediately. It felt very strange to do that, even though I was easily old enough to be their grandmother, but I am glad I had that option.

The funny thing is that I have voluntarily given up my seat for a "senior" on a number of occassions, only to find out later that the "senior" in question was several years younger than I. Of course, I would always offer up my seat to anyone who was clearly older than I.