In article , Cal Nihoni
writes
If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and publicly
admit your guilt as well. How odd.

Get real. How many people would do that? Just you I think.

The fact that others are thieves doesn't mean he should become one.

[And, yes, I have paid in similar circumstances.]

Perhaps London Underground have done their sums and *overall*, their
"apparent incompetence" plan of allowing ticket purchase 80% of the time and
not worrying about the 20% that get away gets them more money than paying
people to allow/enfore ticket purchase 100% of the time, so be it. It's
simple economics.

I was once told that Marks & Spencers, many years ago, changed from
doing detailed daily stocktakes to having a much looser system because
the savings in staff pay (and the staff benefit of reduced need for
unsocial hours) outweighed the losses from additional theft.

It may be both economic and realistic to live with a certain level of
theft rather than try to stop it happening, but the thieves are still
thieving scum.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

Clive D. W. Feather wrote:
In article , Cal Nihoni
writes
If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and
publicly admit your guilt as well. How odd.

Get real. How many people would do that? Just you I think.

The fact that others are thieves doesn't mean he should become one.

[And, yes, I have paid in similar circumstances.]

You mean you have voluntarily donated[1] the price of your journey to LU by
buying a ticket for another journey of the same price? How very generous of
you. However, I think many people would regard not paying in these
circumstances not as theft but as LU allowing them to travel free by not
providing the opportunity for payment *for that journey*[1].

([1] The point here is that in the absence of staff at the destination, the
only way to pay is to purchase a ticket from the machine for the reverse
journey, which would not have been valid for the actual journey undertaken,
and is therefore technically a donation.)

To take another example, if you inadvertently overrun by 5 minutes the
paid-for time at a parking meter, do you regard that as the theft of the
extra 20p or whatever? If so, how do you proceed? Or like most people, do
you just drive away relieved that you've got away with it? I'm just trying
to explore how absolute your view of theft is.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Richard J. wrote:
([1] The point here is that in the absence of staff at the
destination, the only way to pay is to purchase a ticket from the
machine for the reverse journey, which would not have been valid for
the actual journey undertaken, and is therefore technically a
donation.)

And indeed that reverse-journey purchase simply serves to skew London
Transport's statistics, since they will think an artificially high number of
people are making the B to A journey when they're not; presumably they will
then concentrate on providing extra staff at B since this is - to them -
where all the tickets seem to be being bought, and ultimately removing even
more staff hours from station A, which was the short staffed one in the
first place.

OK I accept that the above is tenuous and taking things to extreme, but just
demonstrating that the "everyone who doesn't pay even when LU can't be
bothered to let them pay" brigade are technically making the issue worse.

To take another example, if you inadvertently overrun by 5 minutes the
paid-for time at a parking meter, do you regard that as the theft of
the extra 20p or whatever? If so, how do you proceed? Or like most
people, do you just drive away relieved that you've got away with it?
I'm just trying to explore how absolute your view of theft is.

Precisely. Sometimes life gives you these breaks and it's only natural to
take them.

In article , Cal Nihoni
writes
([1] The point here is that in the absence of staff at the
destination, the only way to pay is to purchase a ticket from the
machine for the reverse journey,

And indeed that reverse-journey purchase simply serves to skew London
Transport's statistics, since they will think an artificially high number of
people are making the B to A journey when they're not;

Except that LUL tickets aren't sold from A to B, they're sold from A to
any location within a set of zones.

And if (as I snipped) this causes LUL to put more people at B, they'll
start selling excess fares from A making it clear where the real problem
is.

OK I accept that the above is tenuous and taking things to extreme,

It also assumes this is a common situation. I strongly suspect it's way
down in the noise.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

In article , Richard J.
writes
If you were honest, you could have purchased your ticket from the
machine at your destination - but you decide not to do so and
publicly admit your guilt as well. How odd.

Get real. How many people would do that? Just you I think.

The fact that others are thieves doesn't mean he should become one.

[And, yes, I have paid in similar circumstances.]

You mean you have voluntarily donated[1] the price of your journey to LU by
buying a ticket for another journey of the same price?

Actually, no.

Firstly, the actual circumstances were WAGN, not LUL. Secondly, I went
and bought a ticket for the journey I had just completed from the ticket
office.

How very generous of
you.

No, how very honest of me.

To take another example, if you inadvertently overrun by 5 minutes the
paid-for time at a parking meter, do you regard that as the theft of the
extra 20p or whatever? If so, how do you proceed?

I don't. It's an offence to put extra money in the meter. It's not an
offence to overstay a few minutes, but there is an excess charge *if
demanded*. So I'm legal.

Or like most people, do
you just drive away relieved that you've got away with it?

I'm relieved. But it's not the same situation.

I also sometimes overpay the meter compared with the time I'm expecting
to stay, so it balances.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 18:23:42 +0100, "Clive D. W. Feather"
wrote:


You mean you have voluntarily donated[1] the price of your journey to LU by
buying a ticket for another journey of the same price?


Firstly, the actual circumstances were WAGN, not LUL. Secondly, I went
and bought a ticket for the journey I had just completed from the ticket
office.

So, the ticket machine at your destination sold tickets FROM your
departure station TO your destination? How unusual.

K wrote:
On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 18:23:42 +0100, "Clive D. W. Feather"
wrote:


You mean you have voluntarily donated[1] the price of your journey to LU by
buying a ticket for another journey of the same price?


Firstly, the actual circumstances were WAGN, not LUL. Secondly, I went
and bought a ticket for the journey I had just completed from the ticket
office.


So, the ticket machine at your destination sold tickets FROM your
departure station TO your destination? How unusual.

NR stations can sell tickets from any NR station to any other NR
station, even if it is neither. In my experience, anyway. Perhaps YMMV.

On Tue, 05 Aug 2003 12:49:21 +0100, K wrote:

On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 18:23:42 +0100, "Clive D. W. Feather"
wrote:


Firstly, the actual circumstances were WAGN, not LUL. Secondly, I went
and bought a ticket for the journey I had just completed from the ticket
office.

So, the ticket machine at your destination sold tickets FROM your
departure station TO your destination? How unusual.


Sorry, I just reread your post - I thought you said you'd bout it from
the ticket machine. Apologies.

In article , K
writes
Sorry, I just reread your post - I thought you said you'd bout it from
the ticket machine. Apologies.

No problem.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address