Quote:
Originally Posted by puckluck
Seriously?
Wow some people are hilarious. Good on the guy for not paying his fare. Why would he? when they only check you once in a blue moon?
If they don't want to hire enough people to check your ticket then that's their problem. They have no problem hiring people to drive a car around giving tickets so they can shove it.
|
Theft is theft.
If you choose to use a service that has a user fee but decide that you don't want to pay that fee, you're stealing from the provider of that service. The City owns Calgary Transit, by extension, all taxpayers own Calgary Transit. Would you brag to a store owner about how much you like to shoplift from him because his security is so bad?
The OP doesn't show any remorse for his crime and doesn't even bother to come up with an excuse like "I always pay my fare, but it was -20 and the train pulled in just as I got to the station, and I knew I'd have to wait 15 minutes in -20 weather if I waited to get the ticket, so I decided to take the risk -- just this once". But, even if that was his excuse, he still would have done it knowing that the risk was there.
I assume the OP is someone who regularly rides the train and decides to not pay for the service, reasoning that with the frequency with which they check riders, over the course of a year you're likely to pay less in fines than you are in fares. I understand that logic, and accept it, but if that's the game you want to play, you sure as hell better pay the fine when you do finally get caught.
I'm sure I could walk into Walmart every day and shoplift something worth $5.50 and never get caught, and the loss of money would likely go unnoticed on their bottom line. It doesn't make it right, and I don't expect the owners of Walmart to accept that it's perfectly fine for me to do it.
A monthly bus pass is $90 (and you can claim the full amount for a Federal Tax Credit, so you get a good percentage of that back). So, if you ride the train every day for a year without paying, you're stealing $1080 worth of services from Calgary Transit. If 1000 people did that every day, it's a million dollars that has to made up somewhere else (sure, that's only an extra dollar per person, but it's the principle dammit).
Yes, my outrage is a little more exagerated here than my real feelings, but at the same time: Don't steal from me, then when you get caught, ask me for advice on how to get away with it.