Chu 朱Sep 4, 2024

Reminder of how much we like to criminalize being poor.

Skipping a $3.50 transit fare results in a $425 fine while skipping a $20 parking pass lands you a $70 fine that rich people complained to high heaven about. What justification, other than hating poor people, is there for this not scaling?

Make parking fines $2000 and then let's talk about the fictional "war on cars"

#Toronto
#FareIsFair

Show threadrefraction Sep 5, 2024
@chu in Germany fare evasion can even result in imprisonment thanks to a law passed by... right, the Nazis. if you ever wondered how much Germany broke with its history: not too much.
Show threadMoon✨ (they/them)Sep 5, 2024
@elexia @chu Me in Düsseldorf taking the train, tram and metro without having paid a single ticket later learning this fact. My reasoning was one of convenience and "it's Germany, how much can the ticket be?" lol. I don't really get the ticketing system there lol.

We weren't caught :D.
Show threadrefraction Sep 5, 2024
@break1146 @chu yeah, you're not alone in your confusion about the system. with inner city transport you're less likely to have ticket checks, but on trains it's pretty risky. you likely won't get into too much trouble as long as you can pay the fine, but those are definitely a lot more than the tickets.
Show threadChu 朱

@elexia @break1146

I'm guessing they would go easy on a tourist too.
Friend and I bought tickets for the train from Rome to Florence (I'm old so this is a long time ago). Two girls doing the backpacking thing. We got the tickets and it was perfect timing as the next train was about to take off. We ran for it and made it with barely a minute to spare. When the fare inspector came we handed him our tickets and then he proceeded to yell at us in Italian. We had zero clue what was happening. Then he writes something on the bottom of the ticket (as in date and time ) and we finally clued in that we were supposed to punch the tickets before getting on board. We were in such a hurry we didn't see the machines, nor did the person selling the tickets suggest we had to do that.
Then an English speaking passenger told us how lucky we were because that's a hefty fine.

Sep 5, 2024 at 1:26pmWeb