Ahh I missed the bit about a family member being caught, that clears the waters in your thinking of this somewhat. With respect though your mam knew she had a ticket on her person but seemingly didnt check to see if its valid? As I said we hear that every day on the railway so its very hard to fathom that we seem to have so many forgetfull people in this country who can do everything else but remember to check their ticket or indeed actually buy one or the correct one. Must be something in the water somewhere
I think that's (very mildly) offensive towards particularly older people. As people get older, they often become more forgetful. People with mild Alzheimers travel by rail as well, for instance, as they probably can't drive any more. And are you always sure of the date?
You're right that there are far too many people using it as an excuse, though.
Neil
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Hmm one feels you missed the bit where I mentioned a PF then prosecution but im not surprised.
No, I saw that, I think I responded to it above, but maybe I, err, forgot. I think "one PF then prosecution" would be fine provided the clock reset at some point, e.g. perhaps one PF per year (which is similarly I believe the same number of times you are allowed to get an Anytime Return refunded if you forget your season ticket). But I wouldn't think it proportionate that if someone received a PF when they were 16 it was in any way proportionate that they might as a result be prosecuted if they forgot their Senior Railcard many years later.
And yourself.
Neil
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Neil, you have conveniently ignored a very big forget - "I forgot to renew my car insurance"...
No, I said above:
"Same with parking. The others have deeper implications e.g. road safety, or the ability to pay for damage caused by a car accident. Most insurers also do a number of reminders and often even auto-renewal."
My car insurance is set to monthly payments and to auto-renew, so unless my account was empty one month at the time of the direct debit coming out (my bank would certainly charge me for telling me that!) the only effect of forgetting the renewal is that I might be charged over the odds having not shopped around.
FWIW, if we had a BahnCard 100 or Generalabonnement equivalent, which provided I had it on me I would be incapable of fare-dodging, at a reasonable price, I would likely have one. Though I recognise why we don't. I guess one of those monthly-paid and on autorenew is sort of an equivalent.
You can make sweeping generalisations, but your arguement against decriminalisation seems to have more to do with organisations not having robust enough recruitment policies in place to make an adequate risk assessment of prospective employees criminal record than any lucid agruement as to why fare evasion should not be viewed as a crime.
Possibly that as well, but I am in most cases (certainly in the case of low-level crime such as petty theft, fare dodging etc) not a fan of a law that doesn't require intent. If someone jumps a ticket barrier, it is clear that there was intent, as if they held a valid ticket they would surely use it to pass through properly. If they get on a train with no ticket check and their season ticket is one day out of date, and they've held one continuously for the past 20 years, it's fairly clear there was not intent.
There are grey areas like those Carnet tickets, but I think the railway should either provide a proper means of validating them (i.e. an official date stamping machine) with an official process for going and reporting having screwed it up (as the Swiss do, they give you one back if you do mess up validating it and report it immediately), or just not sell them at all.
Neil
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For your mother to have a criminal record, it would have to be a RoRA prosecution, which would certainly have failed.
Does a Byelaw prosecution not show up on a DBS check? So in that regard is it more like a minor motoring offence e.g. speeding which I believe also doesn't?
Neil
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Wolverton - no barrier. Bletchley - rarely manned by an RPI. Leighton, not barriered, and at least three entrances to the station. Cheddington - no barriers, station ticket office permanently closed. Tring, not barriered. Berko - I'm not sure, and the same with Hemel. Apsley, no barriers. Kings Langley, no barriers. The fares are much higher at this end, yet we rarely see RPI's working barriers. If you take Northampton - New Street, almost the same distance as to Euston, the fare is 14.10. If you want to go to Euston, the fare is almost 27 pounds. I believe that our new Revenue chap has been told to crack down on the Cross-City, but it brings in so little revenue, I don't see the point.
You do get a fair bit of late-night fare dodging to/from Euston, but the vast majority are on season tickets in the peak, and most trains off-peak operate to/from 8-11 at Euston which are barriered. And most people by far are going to/from London, so are likely to hit barriers at one end.
I'd imagine, certainly from observation when guards come through, that fare-dodging levels on the south WCML are rather low, except for late at night, when the service is infrequent so if LM wanted to they could provide a few security guards in case of abusive passengers and check tickets on each train.
Neil
