Be an arsehole - become a ticket inspector
This week a bloke in Melbourne bought a pre-paid tram ticket, hopped on board and got fined for fare evasion by the Melbourne branch of the Gestapo.
His crime? The tram's ticket readers were not working.
Here in Sydney, where exactly the same ticketing system is in use, although under the Travelpass name, suffers similar problems at times with two slight differences: Those with faulty tickets usually get excused simply for the sake of saving time on what is a very crowded transport system and when a faulty ticket reader is discovered it is usually replaced whilst the mode of transport is still in service - the driver calls the depot and they send a mobile serviceman out two swap the old reader for a new one.
That's not to say Sydney's transit officers don't get it wrong sometimes though. In all of Australia's capital cities it is all too common to see large blokes and butch sheilas, who make up the ticket inspecting force, crowd around a timid elderly person who has made an honest mistake about their fare purchase and see these people harassed and provoked by these idiots and it gives rise to the question: what kind of arsehole would you have to be to do a job like this in the first place?
Written at 01:07 on 5 November 2009 by Lord Watchdog.
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