I’m
on a train heading towards the city, and having just been confronted by the
ticket inspector and fined $140, I’m wishing I was in a car, or some other form
of transport, where the possibility of a ride to the city couldn’t possibly
cost in excess of $140.
The
reason for such an expensive journey, was a dud ticket validating machine, and
some slight stupidity on my behalf, but lets not get bogged down in that issue.
My
friend and I were all set for a brilliant day, so with hope in our hearts and
the promise of cheap and reliable transport on the horizon, we headed to the
station, blissfully unaware of the expenses involved in the use of public
transport. We purchased our tickets, I stuck mine in a machine which apparently
prints an expiry date on the ticket and ‘validates’ it, and hopped on the next
train headed towards the city, completely unaware that I had just broken the
law.
Approximately
half way through our journey, I was wondering where the usual, lunatics, drug
dealers, and just plain weirdos were – the train ride had been pretty tame up until this point. Then a rather stumpy man walks up to me, shoves his transport
authority badge in my face like he’s watched far too many cop shows, and asks
me to present my ticket to him. With nothing to hide I fetched my ticket from
my wallet and handed it to the chap. He asks ‘why isn’t this ticket validated?’
completely shocked I told him I put it in the validation machine and that the
machine must have failed. This line of communication clearly flew straight
over the mans head, because he then begun to write me a fine of $70.
Now
I’m sorry, but I don’t think that it’s entirely fair that I incur a fine because
of a faulty machine, which is supposed to be maintained by the public transport
authorities. And it gets worse too, because after the stumpy fellow was done
pretending to be an FBI agent towards me, he begun to do the same for a near by
lady, except this time, because the lady wasn’t carrying personal identification, he was going to take her to the police. She was petrified, borderline
crying, and the stumpy fellow along with his fat mate, kept smirking like they
had just lead a million dollar drug bust for the FBI. They were enjoying
this.
After
this episode, I begun to wonder why do people use public transport? I mean, it’s
expensive, full of murderers, drug dealers, pretend FBI agents, and generally
unpleasant people. From my two experiences with public transport within the
past twelve months, this is all I can gather, so you can’t even begin to
imagine how difficult it is for me to comprehend why people use it every day,
and what their life must be like. I’m guessing that after a year of public
transport use, you would be either broke, or killed.
The
only real reasons people use public transport, that I could think of are as
follows, a lack of knowledge on the
operation of a car, or the belief that they are doing their bank balance a favour by
taking the train each day. Driving a car is not a difficult thing to do, it
doesn’t require a lot of skill, get some lessons and you’ll be fine. Catching
the train every day is not fine. Because as I’ve already stated, it’s damn
expensive, even if the ticket validation machine at your local station does
work. Honestly you would spend less money filling up your car each day, plus
it’s far more comfortable, safer, and there’s less chance of being fined or
even pulled over by a pretend FBI agent if you drive.
So,
get in you’re car and drive places, get away from the unpleasantness that is
public transport, and enjoy all that is driving, the freedom, the involvement
and the thrill.
And
for the love of god, if you do choose to use public transport for some odd
reason, ensure you’re ticket actually validates, and don’t put you’re feet on
the seats, that’ll cost you - $140 to be exact.
No comments:
Post a Comment