Off-route

[penaltyfines]

Can you be MG11ed for being off-route?

 

[Ferret]

Can you be MG11esd for being off-route?

I'd say it depends! Turn up in Newcastle flashing a London-Plymouth ticket and I'd say you'd stand a wonderful chance of being MG'd!

If you're travelling Sheffield-Leeds and get checked between Doncaster and Wakefield on a route 'not Doncaster' ticket then no, you shouldn't be MG'd - a straightforward excess fare is payable.

 

[penaltyfines]

I meant off route in the strict sense... ie the ticket is valid but for the ROUTE section of the ticket.

I know PFs aren't applicable and the usual course of action is a excess fare, but I was curious whether you are technically liable to be MG11ed (presuming no intent) should you come across a jobsworth?

 

[Solent&Wessex]

I meant off route in the strict sense... ie the ticket is valid but for the ROUTE section of the ticket.

I know PFs aren't applicable and the usual course of action is a excess fare, but I was curious whether you are technically liable to be MG11ed (presuming no intent) should you come across a jobsworth?

I would say that no, you shouldn't be MG11d for being off route, unless of course you refused to pay any excess fare that may be applicable, in which case I suppose you could be.

 

[tony_mac]

I suppose there is a possibility that a guard, having seen a pattern of behaviour (or there had been a previous complaint about him) may believe that the passenger does not have a valid ticket and also intends to avoid payment. Then he might go down that route. (Assuming that he also believes it is still 1983.... )

 

[yorkie]

OK, what happened exactly?

PM me if you don't want the details to be made public.

 

[Mojo]

I suppose if you intentionally travel off route in order to avoid paying the correct fare for your journey then that would be grounds for a prosecution under the 1889 Act.

 

[yorkie]

If you were stupid/defiant/idiotic like "I deliberately buy a route Not London ticket, avoid the guard where possible, double-gate through barriers and they can't stop me because all they can do is excess" then I think the answer is yes, you can get an MG11 and you'd deserve it!

On the other hand I do not see how a reasonable person can reasonably be issued with an MG11 for being genuinely off-route*, unless the RPI is an absolute..... which, unfortunately, some of them are.

So I am going to say "maybe" on this one, which of course isn't of much help to the OP. I need to know what happened in the case that the OP refers to before I can give an opinion on this particular case (whether it happened to the OP, or a friend, or anyone else the OP knows or has heard from).


* What I mean by genuinely off-route, is that I am not counting it when people go over-distance or deviate from the route. e.g. if you invented your own silly route that wasn't in the Routeing Guide, such as London to Stevenage via Euston, Inverness and Aberdeen, that is NOT off-route, that is massively deviating/over-distance and The Manual would give rather different instructions compared to a change of route.