Child Fare Age 14 to 16

[kermit]

When did the Child Fare age threshold rise from 14 to 16? Was there any publicity at the time? How many years elapsed between the school leaving age rising, and the fare threshold catching up?

I just know that somebody out there knows!

 

[edwin_m]

I believe it was fairly soon after August 1981, because that was when I reached 16 and I was distinctly miffed at missing out on it!

 

[Greenback]

That sounds about right to me. I turned 15 in the middle of 1981 and a month or so later my father bought a child ticket for me to travel with the family to Dover.

I remember it well, because due to delays we were very late getting back home on the return and when he complained, he was given a full refund! None of this Passenger Charter type nonsense in those days

 

[kermit]

Thanks for the answers! I've just done a bit of Wiki - ing, and discovered that the school leaving age was raised from 14 to 15 in 1947, then 15 to 16 in 1972. So by the maths that they managed to force into my head between 5 and 16, that was 33 years that the railways dawdled in recognising that adulthood no longer started at 14. Puts the perceived delays in reduction of energy retail prices after wholesale price falls into a bit of perspective!

 

[30907]

Not sure there was a particular connection between child fares and school ages - except that scholars could get seasons till they turned 18 (I did), and group travel for under 18s was at half fare (I booked some).

The uniform child age across much of Europe was 12 (maybe still is in places) and in Germany it is 15 now.

 

[MichaelAMW]

The age went up on the same day as the annual fares increase in January 1982.

 

[transmanche]

Not sure there was a particular connection between child fares and school ages - except that scholars could get seasons till they turned 18 (I did), and group travel for under 18s was at half fare (I booked some).

The uniform child age across much of Europe was 12 (maybe still is in places) and in Germany it is 15 now.

You still pay adult fare from age 14 on (Arriva) buses in Northumberland and North Yorkshire.

 

[Spartacus]

The old theory, and still used the last time I enquired with a bus company, was adult fares applied once the child was too old to be expected to sit on a parent's lap if it was busy.