Children (and even teenagers, at times grudgingly) require handling with care.
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Some really wise words in your post there.
I often take a more agressive thought process though.
I pay my hard earned money for tickets all the time, yet if someone gets let off seemingly all the time then why should I pay? It's a difficult balance though and unless a constant presence from RPIs (or similar) is around, if people can get away with it, they will I suppose.
I often wonder why people get on the train assuming they can travel for free.
I understand at unmanned stations, you have to buy on the train, so fuels the same thought process for stations without barriers too. But "the people" seem okay with getting a free journey. Is that the same as eating a sandwich round the supermarket and not paying? Funny how one seems worse than the other (morally) but is more or less the same.
I quite like India's approach:
Make fares cheap, but penalties for no ticket huge... and followed through!
I'd also be interested to know how many people over a given time evade paying and how much that costs the railway, AND whether the amount would be really noticable.
There has also been the incident where a woman was raped when she was not let on the last bus because she didn’t have enough money.
It was a consequence of not having any money. I have little sympathy for people who are out but don't think about the last bus/train back, or whether they'll have enough money. Completely different if they were robbed but I'd have thought the majority of cases (of people not having enough money) are people not taking enough personal responsibilty, which then makes it hard when someone
really needs genuine help.
On a half related note, I wonder how many 999 calls over Christmas have been genuine "I need an ambulence/fire/police" rather than "I'm too drunk to help myself" or "there's a seagull on my roof".
How about "do you have a mobile phone on you?". "Well phone your parents and tell them what time you will be home, and then I will confiscate the phone and you can have it back when someone pays for the ticket you haven't got.
It is illegal.
But if the phone was handed over, it's not like the Train Manager forced it from them. They (despite being told to) voluntarily gave their phone over.