Random question - fare dodging

[jnl1984]

Over the last 3 weeks, 4 buses i have been travelling on. the driver has refused to move from a stop until a fare dodger gets off the bus... This causes issues with other passengers quite often telling the driver to get a move on...

I am however in the frame of mind that the driver shouldn't move until they get off or are removed by police, I would rather sit there for 20 minutes rather than them get away with it.

What are other peoples thoughts on this?

[lgr]

The bus driver can't win either way, and it's one of the reasons I feel sorry for them sometimes.

As a selfish as it sounds, it depends on the circumstance. While I always believe you should pay for something, if I have somewhere to be and the bus driver will make me late by waiting for them to get off / calling the police etc. then yeah, I'll get extremely annoyed. 

Most of the time though, from my experience, fare dodgers just get off and try again with the next bus behind it. It doesn't solve the issue, but it never really causes a major hassle. In general though, it is incredibly annoying to know that you've paid for your journey and then someone gets on with an invalid ticket and they're allowed to just get away with it. Some people just think they can get away with anything.

[ilovetea4370]

Yeah, it is rather annoying when this happens because the driver is just stuck between a rock and a hard place, mind you once on the 3 one irate guy went upstairs and literally dragged one fare dodger off the bus by his hoodie, he came down to applause from the pensioner brigade and the driver seemed rather grateful too! I know most drivers I see just ignore them and leave them to it, personally I wish more would make a stand but is it really worth it half the time with all the abuse they can get?

[Ash]

I had a bad experience before on a bus with a far dodger a lady got on the 404 in West Brom about 6/7 years ago the pass was out of date and the driver took if off her, she mouthed off opened the cab door and started hitting the driver and shouting abuse. eventually the women got of the bus with a commotion and the driver which suprsingly the bus was a b6le 623 to be exact put is his foot down to drive off quickly before she got on never noticed the merc on the 74 in front and slammed on his brakes, at this time an old lady boarding the bus got thrown down the bus and hit her head with other passengers banging their faces off hand rails and the poles. The inspectors got involved and everyone who was shaken up or injured got seen to with bus being made to pull in, i only hit the side of my face so got off and caught the 404 behind. All this due to a lady having and out of date pass and the driver taking it off her and from this innocent people get hurt. Untill something like an oyster card system is brought in i dont see how it can be avoided.

[lgr]

That's pretty bad... although occasionally you get really amusing fare dodging incidents.

I was on the 27 once and a woman got on with an out of date pass, the driver told her to get off and she started mouthing off. She then accused him of racism, and he started arguing back about how she was just being stupid. She then called him every name under the sun and for some reason got off the bus momentarily. The driver then asked her to get back on, and as she went to do it he closed  the doors in her face and drove off laughing, with the whole bus laughing along with him. It was pretty great.

[4006]

I had a bad experience before on a bus with a far dodger a lady got on the 404 in West Brom about 6/7 years ago the pass was out of date and the driver took if off her, she mouthed off opened the cab door and started hitting the driver and shouting abuse. eventually the women got of the bus with a commotion and the driver which suprsingly the bus was a b6le 623 to be exact put is his foot down to drive off quickly before she got on never noticed the merc on the 74 in front and slammed on his brakes, at this time an old lady boarding the bus got thrown down the bus and hit her head with other passengers banging their faces off hand rails and the poles. The inspectors got involved and everyone who was shaken up or injured got seen to with bus being made to pull in, i only hit the side of my face so got off and caught the 404 behind. All this due to a lady having and out of date pass and the driver taking it off her and from this innocent people get hurt. Untill something like an oyster card system is brought in i dont see how it can be avoided.

You dont seam to get this problem as much with other bus companys! Green Bus Co have the best strategy. Forget daysavers, dodgy returns being used over and over again, forget the 20mile £1.70 short hops....... its a flat fare!..1 price one ticket one way travel end of. Even half of the OAP/Disabled cards are fake,stolen or tampered with these days but to be fair I don't believe so much it is the system in place that is the problem its the way it is enforced that is!

[Phil]

One thing they seem to do through BC routes is to report people who haven't got a pass on the radio and for people to ignor them, probably one of the better ideas.

I think they need to improve fare dogdeing systems on the trains though, as it just seems far too easy to get away with it.

[Ash]

One problem with the day saver tickets is that the ticket type and the printing machines are too old and out of date, the dates are small and hard to read and sometimes the ink does not print it great, whereas diamond has much better tickets vertical tickets with the date and type of ticket in large black bold print, so at least the driver can see wether the ticket is out of date or not some people flash the ticket that fast or upside down the driver needs to be lighting speed just to make out date and ticket type, its like the cash vault they dont seem to be made for cash notes the driver often has to poke something down the vault to push the notes in.

[windy miller]

I was on a 6 heading out a few days ago and got held up by a combination of ticket inspectors and a transport police woman in digbeth.a young woman with a pushchair was told to get off which she did (eventualy).What annoyed me was the time taken to sort it out followed by a check on everybody else.years ago an inspector would often be seen with his clipboard skipping from one bus to another almost at random.where are they now? >:(

[windy miller]

on the subject of drivers standing on the brake (for whatever reason) I was unlucky to find myself making my way down the lower deck of a 451 in west brom.when the driver made a hard brake to avoid a pedestrian.With a carrier bag on my left arm and my pass in my right hand I made an immidiate grab for the nearest pole.(not a clever thing to do with a thin piece of plastic in your hand) I now have a travel pass with a minor split in it which refuses to register on the scanner.fortunatly most vehs have a manual register now. YES I know I can get a replacement card in summer lane-They want 7 quid...

[nx4737]

Whenever I've seen people caught fare dodging the driver has generally just turned the engine off and refused to move, this must be more or less the norm...

[wbdriver]

as people say, the driver can't win. if we challenge the out of date pass and are abused, the company wont back us up half the time and often bollock us for disrupting the service and losing the company money (ironic i know).

we have been told to let them on and press an anomoly button on the ticket machine which "marks" the dodgy place on a map on a computer and apparantly every so often the revenue come out and look at the route.

some routes are better than others though - a good example for me was i did 17 trips a couple of weeks ago on the 451 and only came across about 2 out of date passes (sounds dirty i know ;D). fast forward to the sunday two trips on the 402A and nearly every other pass was out of date.

i also remember about two years ago someone didnt pay the correct fare and went upstairs, so i turned the bus off. he came back down and paid what he owed, and do you think the bus would start again.................

[wilmotm (Matt Wilmot)]

That's unfortunate wbdriver and although I have never been on a bus that has failed to restart there have been some close calls, especially on the 257 when it reaches Gornal, most drivers will switch off even if there's only a two minute wait. I presume this switching off and then quickly switching back on doesn't do the engine much good and we have often had to wait 2 or 3 minutes before a WN Trident would start back into life

[4504]

Yeah. I completely agree, I've only been checked on the Wolverhampton to New St line once in my entire life

One thing they seem to do through BC routes is to report people who haven't got a pass on the radio and for people to ignor them, probably one of the better ideas.

I think they need to improve fare dogdeing systems on the trains though, as it just seems far too easy to get away with it.

[Ash]

as people say, the driver can't win. if we challenge the out of date pass and are abused, the company wont back us up half the time and often bollock us for disrupting the service and losing the company money (ironic i know).

we have been told to let them on and press an anomoly button on the ticket machine which "marks" the dodgy place on a map on a computer and apparantly every so often the revenue come out and look at the route.

some routes are better than others though - a good example for me was i did 17 trips a couple of weeks ago on the 451 and only came across about 2 out of date passes (sounds dirty i know ;D). fast forward to the sunday two trips on the 402A and nearly every other pass was out of date.

i also remember about two years ago someone didnt pay the correct fare and went upstairs, so i turned the bus off. he came back down and paid what he owed, and do you think the bus would start again.................

The bus wouldnt start again it wouldnt be a volvo b6le by any chance would it :) at least the mercs are put on the 401/2/2A now