What pisses me off is a few times a month I go from Bickley to Kent house been doing this for 3 years not on one occasion have I seen a ticket inspector. Then think to myself Imagine I've got a newsagents elfsborg comes in everyday for his paper, have put a note up "out the back please leave money by the till" Once twice maybe after 5 days though of leaving the sign up I'm taking the piss. It's not hard Make it clear no ticket no travel ,everyone knows where they are. Or f@cking employ some staff to check tickets. Another day they would of just let organiser buy a ticket
That's because you live in an area where there are barriers. From my recollection Maidstone doesn't have any, hence the ticket inspectors.
The fines are extortionate and probably waste a lot of valuable time and effort to issue the final sum.
I seem to remember the signs on Southeastern (or perhaps Connex) trains that failure to produce a valid ticket could result in the greater of £20 or twice the fare for the journey you are taking. That should be the standard.
What pisses me off is a few times a month I go from Bickley to Kent house been doing this for 3 years not on one occasion have I seen a ticket inspector. Then think to myself Imagine I've got a newsagents elfsborg comes in everyday for his paper, have put a note up "out the back please leave money by the till" Once twice maybe after 5 days though of leaving the sign up I'm taking the piss. It's not hard Make it clear no ticket no travel ,everyone knows where they are. Or f@cking employ some staff to check tickets. Another day they would of just let organiser buy a ticket
That's because you live in an area where there are barriers. From my recollection Maidstone doesn't have any, hence the ticket inspectors.
I'm not entirely sure that Bickley does, I believe it's the first stop without barriers - and if @clb74 is travelling in to Kent then there's very few (any?) barriers along the line apart from the likes of Ashford. (St. Mary Cray, Swanley, Farningham Road/Eynsford... and onwards don't.)
For what it's worth, although the fella may have been in the right to fine @The Organiser - it's not fair that these rules are applied totally inconsistently. I've been fined twice in the last 3 years, once going Swanley to Maidstone East and once at Peckham Rye changing from Thameslink to the London Overground.
The time I was fined going Maidstone East was one of the only times I attempted to pay for a ticket on the train, I used to see this happen numerous times every morning so assumed it was OK, in fact I knew other commuters who even bought their weekly tickets on-board to avoid the Monday morning queues! However, I got a slightly later train and got fined: a different inspector had a different interpretation of the rules I guess.
I live in Bromley South now, and the only time I travel towards Kent is to visit family in Swanley. Since that's been covered by the Oyster card - around a year ago - I haven't been buying tickets, I've always used contactless. Last week I was going to Rochester and out of habit I accidentally tapped on, only realising I needed a ticket when I got past Swanley. Not only was I able to buy one on the train, the rather friendly conductor opted to give me a cheaper return; openly saying "I'm not supposed to do this, I should charge you the anytime fair - but I'll do an off-peak return for you.".
That's a great little story for me, and I must applaud the conductor for having two traits which are incredibly rare amongst SouthEastern staff: (1) friendliness, and (2) helpfulness! When you consider the situation of @The Organiser though, he found himself in a pretty similar situation and got fined and threatened with a court case!
I think the issue here, like in other areas is that the inspectors clearly have targets when they shouldn't have. There has to be a system where people dodging fares are fined and deterred from doing so - but sometimes there are mitigating circumstances which the inspectors ignore. I used to be a commuter - I had an annual pass and was never fined, but I did see a lot of ticket inspectors being totally inflexible - on some (rare) occasions I and other passengers had to intervene and try to defend the person. I saw some inspectors being flexible too but got a sense their jobs didn't really promote it. I think it isn't too hard to see a dodger and a victim of circumstance - usually caused by cuts to the ticketing services.
Comments
I seem to remember the signs on Southeastern (or perhaps Connex) trains that failure to produce a valid ticket could result in the greater of £20 or twice the fare for the journey you are taking. That should be the standard.
For what it's worth, although the fella may have been in the right to fine @The Organiser - it's not fair that these rules are applied totally inconsistently. I've been fined twice in the last 3 years, once going Swanley to Maidstone East and once at Peckham Rye changing from Thameslink to the London Overground.
The time I was fined going Maidstone East was one of the only times I attempted to pay for a ticket on the train, I used to see this happen numerous times every morning so assumed it was OK, in fact I knew other commuters who even bought their weekly tickets on-board to avoid the Monday morning queues! However, I got a slightly later train and got fined: a different inspector had a different interpretation of the rules I guess.
I live in Bromley South now, and the only time I travel towards Kent is to visit family in Swanley. Since that's been covered by the Oyster card - around a year ago - I haven't been buying tickets, I've always used contactless. Last week I was going to Rochester and out of habit I accidentally tapped on, only realising I needed a ticket when I got past Swanley. Not only was I able to buy one on the train, the rather friendly conductor opted to give me a cheaper return; openly saying "I'm not supposed to do this, I should charge you the anytime fair - but I'll do an off-peak return for you.".
That's a great little story for me, and I must applaud the conductor for having two traits which are incredibly rare amongst SouthEastern staff: (1) friendliness, and (2) helpfulness! When you consider the situation of @The Organiser though, he found himself in a pretty similar situation and got fined and threatened with a court case!