juliet

Are you by any chance a bit short? As a lanky git I find that airline and coach seats are too low, and sitting with them upright puts my knees above my hips and puts pressure from the abdomen into the stomach---not good if you're at all subject to travel-sickness.

And then the headrest to the seat is at shoulder height, pushing me forward, while the indentation that should be making room for the shoulders is leaving a gap where I'd like support for my back if I'm going to relax my spine at all---and the lumbar support for the lower back is just pushing into the bottom of the spine and crushing my stomach further. (This last effect is particularly pronounced on more recent trains, for some reason)

To get any support for my back at all I need to wriggle lower in the seat, and to do *that* every degree by which I can tilt the seat back is valuable. It decreases the legroom I get in proportion, of course. The last time I flew long-haul I broke my journey in Amsterdam to get an extra inch of seat pitch---it was worth a couple of hours to me[1].

None of this, even the absurd little rising headpiece on the planes, will do me much good in the event of a collision, since I can't by any means get my head into a position where I'll get proper protection from whiplash. But perhaps I have a right to try.

If your head's that bit lower then I admit my seat-back will be intruding into your personal space more than the reclined seat of the bod in front of me. But I'm not doing it wantonly to irritate you.


[1] On the way back I was bumped onto the BA flight anyway. I spent it on the steward's flip-down seat at the back of the cabin---the straight board-back was more comfortable than trying to fold myself into my allocated seat. At least my head was supported and my legs could sprawl.