| Topic: | Re:Confiscation of 11-18 year-olds Oyster cards | |
| Posted by: | Andy Jones | |
| Date/Time: | 24/04/10 07:44:00 |
| The last survey by TfL showed that over 7% of journeys on bendy buses and 3% on normal buses were by fare evaders. As children don't pay anyway it seems strange that the inspectors seem to be focusing on them. The reason is likely to be that the fine for fare evasion is ฃ25 assuming that you can get the real identity of the evader whereas with children if you confiscate their card the bus company makes hundreds of pounds of extra revenue. They will no doubt deny that there is any sort of bounty or commission given to inspectors for taking cards off children but they said the same thing about traffic wardens and parking tickets. I think it is unfair to blame Boris Johnson for this disgraceful practice as he was probably unaware of what was going on and quite happy to accept the bus companies' assurances that they were cracking down on anti-social behaviour. Now what is happening has become public knowledge he presumably will put a stop to it. |