On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 12:39:33 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 11:14:55 on Sun, 30
Oct 2005, Nick Cooper
remarked:
No, she made the fatal mistake of not having enough Prepay on her
Oyster card, and then boarding despite the card reader on the bus not
giving her a green light and the driver not noticing it. She gambled
and lost. Just like you.

Or she might not have noticed the reader on the bus not giving her a
green light.

Which is akin to her offering cash to the driver and "not noticing"
when he doesn't take it because he's looking elsewhere/dealing with
another passenger. Would she have then been right to continue
boarding, rather than quierying the situation with the driver?

Completely different situation. Especially the amount and style of
feedback to the passenger.

Even the passenger is not claiming that she got a green light to
signify a valid reading, rather she is claiming that she didn't get an
acknowledgement of an _invalid_ reading. The comparison, therefore, if
perfectly valid. Unless she is completely stupid, she will have known
full well that she didn't pay to get on the bus.

Green light = You've paid; carry on boarding.
Red light = You've not paid (for whatever reason); re-touch or query
with driver.
No response = You've not paid; re-touch or query with driver.

It's hardly rocket science, is it?

(Does anyone else think it's odd that tube gates "acknowledge" the
receipt of a paper ticket by putting on a red, or is it orange, light?
So passengers begin to associate success with that.)

Presumed innocent until the case has come to court, eh?

Prseumed stupid in this case, more like.

Until you've heard the facts, not some garbled reporting of
pseudo-facts, you have no idea.

On the contrary, I am basing my judgement on what was so obviously
_not_ reported in the inevitably pro-(this particular)passenger,
anti-TfL version in the 'Standard': "[She] insisted she had passed her
card over the reader and neither the machine nor the driver warned her
that the payment had apparently failed." What is absent, of course,
is any claim that the machine acknowledged a successful payment, which
would probably be a bluff to far, even for her.
--
Nick Cooper

[Carefully remove the detonators from my e-mail address to reply!]

The London Underground at War, and in Films & TV:
http://www.nickcooper.org.uk/