But surely, if you are presented with a bundle of little cards, you'd check them, and try and work out *why* you had them, wouldn't you? Or you'd get to the station a bit earlier and ask someone what they were all for?
Maybe.
I would.
But as I hope my earlier response to this question made clear:- we're not all the same. We don't all have the same capacity. We don't all have the same experience. And we don't all know the same (about rail travel) as each other.
In this matter, I'm the same as you,
EM2, so the argument is entirely abstract. But I can think of VERY many people who I know well who do not share our knowledge, experience (and perhaps qualifications) and attitude towards machines or towards corporate bodies or towards on-line transactions.
I have to disregard
Flamingo's perfectly reasonable response evaluating the impact on the industry if a change was to be introduced; because my comments above were confined to where we are now. But I cannot disregard the evidentially abundant body of people (perhaps rare travellers on UK railways) who simply have no prior knowledge to draw on, who observe the persistent posters and other adverts promoting cheap and simple rail travel to inform them, and who experience a bewildering array of (almost) identical vouchers popping out of a machine for a single journey.
Sure, they are wrong. That's not in dispute.
But is the response to someone who is wrong to penalise them? to refer to them as stupid? to point out the history and commercial payback of the confusing matter of multiple tickets? to point out the complexities of the ticket restrictions and offers and operators?
Or is it to be understanding, sympathetic and helpful?
[Surely the only distinction to be made is that which differentiates the innocent victim of complexity from the persistent or opportunist Fare Dodger? How on earth have we confused these two travellers? Eh?]