Honestly, this article paints them as the bad guy being caught for their actions. And while I do not condone law breaking, I'm just shocked that travel from Surrey to central could cost someone £20,000. It doesn't say over what period of time, but they also mention another fare dodger who saved £49k over 5 years. That's insane?! Like if we take post-tax median salary of £34k in London. You're literally spending 1.4-1.5 out of 5 years of your working life to fund an unreliable, non high speed rail commute.

I lived in Paris for a couple years and there were complaints among my friends and colleagues when they changed the price of the monthly pass in the whole Ile de France region (i.e. an area 7-8x of Greater London) increased by 2-3 euros to a grand total of checks notes 88.80€. And by law your employer reimburses half your public transit subscription costs. Moreover a single ticket anywhere in that region now costs 2.50€, and there's no peak/off-peak bs. Honestly at this point I'm surprised there aren't as many fare dodgers here as there are in Paris.

And it's not like the London underground/suburban trains run that much better than the Paris metro/RER/Transilien.

What the hell are we doing here? Is there some way to influence policy to change this? My local MP is a big wig at the labour party, and idk if he ever actually reads his emails. And anyways I'd like to contribute much more than just an email of an age old complaint to people who probably don't even take the tube.

by Lollipop126

16 comments

  1. You can be against the prices and mad that someone (who likely earns a lot more than the median salary) is cheating the system.

    The issue is fairness, some rich guy felt he was better than everyone else because he didn’t pay his fares. We’re equally annoyed at the little scumbags who tailgate the tube barriers. Same issue, different scale.

  2. You could show up at your MPs surgery and let them know how you feel.

  3. The tickets don’t make sense. Sometimes you can buy a longer ticket e.g.

    Surrey to Camden town
    Which would involve going via Waterloo and it out cheaper…

  4. People seem to have no respect for anything in the UK.

    I have often pondered why.

    I put it down to the pursuit of profit above all else. The system is not there to benefit the people, the system is not there to provide a good service. The system is there to enrich a minority.

    So surprising people say, fuck em.

  5. They calculate the ‘evaded’ fare based on anytime day singles which are the most expensive tickets. Their season ticket would cost much less, a few thousand at most.

    Ashford (Surrey) to London Terminals annual season ticket is £3164, that would be over 6 years of full time fare evasion to make up £20k, but as I say, they use the most expensive singles when calculating fare evasion.

  7. I mean they pay in other ways. In Paris fares contribute only 30% of their revenue and the rest is through tax, levies and government subsidises. In London it’s basically 100% funded through fares now. So it’s not that fares here should 3 times less, but really fares there should be 3 times more.

  8. r/london when the fare dodger is black 🤬
    r/london when the fare dodger is a white block 🥺

  10. Exactly, people arent getting what the real fucking scandal is here.

  11. I think them releasing this story, the train line thought they’re showing some sort of good news on what they did. But the people have no issues with the commuter doing this because we know how ridiculous the price of tickets are here.

  12. If the cunts didn’t spend so much on fare evasion gestapo officers, I would cheat them too. They deserve absolutely none of my money. Thank fuck I only have to commute twice a week now. 

    Sadly we live in the west, where companies get all the rights and powers to fuck everyone’s lives up.

  13. Unfortunately, due to unforseen circumstances, this comment has been cancelled. A comment replacement service is available.

  14. Watching the video feels absolutely surreal, the way they’re tracking this guy with a whole team of undercover officers as if he’s a serial murderer or something, when he’s literally just your standard fare dodger. And then they catch him and he’s honestly really calm and reasonable and just like “yeah, it’s just really expensive to buy the ticket from Surrey”

    What a dystopian video. £20k on rail fares is fucking mental and they’re acting like he’s some evil criminal mastermind for trying to get it down to a reasonable price so he can actually afford to travel and live his life. Fuck these companies

  15. Try asking voters how much tax they would like to pay so that commuters from Surrey to London can have cheaper fares.

  16. Wild how all the comments on here are justifying/downplaying how expensive tickets are.

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