Neil Williams wrote:
On Sun, 27 May 2007 10:59:12 +0100, traveller
wrote:

I boarded a London Bus with an Oyster Card that had insufficient credit
for the journey. I had used it twice previously during the day and was
unaware that the credit was running low.

This is either a troll or a person who did not check for the bleep and
green light on boarding.

Probably the latter. I doubt everybody instinctively knows to wait for
a bleep and a green light.

Seeing as this wasn't a bendy-bus, why didn't the driver point out
traveller's error right away? That's what the drivers here do when the
farebox gives a boop instead of a beep.
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA

The driver wouldn't have had much idea whose card it was when there are a scrum of people pushing and shoving their way onto the bus all at once.

On Mon, 28 May 2007 10:19:12 +0100, traveller wrote:

I got on the bus because i didn't hear the 'reject' sound, it's an
easy
mistake to make. There was a scrum of people crowding onto the bus,
you
have a split second to swipe your card before the person behind you
swipes theirs-

This is a different bus to the one that I last got on.

On that you stand in front of the pad and the person
behind has no chance to touch it with their card until
you get out of the way. It's your choice to do that in
'a second', not theirs.

If you think that everyone queues up, patiently waiting to touch their
card against the reader, you've obviously never travelled on a London
bus.

Are you talking about a different London? I use London buses all the
time and that's exactly what happens.

On Mon, 28 May 2007 12:29:14 +0100, asdf
wrote:

Are you talking about a different London? I use London buses all the
time and that's exactly what happens.

Funnily enough I was thinking that. Indeed, I sometimes keep my card
in my wallet and touch my wallet on the reader, which seems to work
90% of times. When it hasn't, I've never felt that I would be causing
a dangerous situation, nor have I been barged by others, when taking
the few seconds to remove the card from my wallet and touch it
straight onto the machine.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Well pardon me but i wasn't aware that either of you were on the bus that i used. Can the holier-than-thou brigade just give it a rest? The original question i posed was about procedure carried out by Revenue Protection Officers. If you haven't got anything relevant to contribute then don't waste my time or yours posting!

traveller wrote:
Neil Williams Wrote:
On Mon, 28 May 2007 12:29:14 +0100, asdf lid
wrote:
-
Are you talking about a different London? I use London buses all
the time and that's exactly what happens.-

Funnily enough I was thinking that. Indeed, I sometimes keep my
card in my wallet and touch my wallet on the reader, which seems
to work 90% of times. When it hasn't, I've never felt that I
would be causing a dangerous situation, nor have I been barged by
others, when taking the few seconds to remove the card from my
wallet and touch it straight onto the machine.

Well pardon me but i wasn't aware that either of you were on the bus
that i used. Can the holier-than-thou brigade just give it a rest?
The original question i posed was about procedure carried out by
Revenue Protection Officers. If you haven't got anything relevant
to contribute then don't waste my time or yours posting!

Discussion of how to go about touching-in so that you *do* notice the
response from the machine is entirely relevant to the situation you find
yourself in. You might even learn how to avoid it happening again.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

"traveller" wrote in message
...

tim..... Wrote:
"traveller" wrote in message
...-

I got on the bus because i didn't hear the 'reject' sound, it's an
easy
mistake to make. There was a scrum of people crowding onto the bus,
you
have a split second to swipe your card before the person behind you
swipes theirs-

This is a different bus to the one that I last got on.

On that you stand in front of the pad and the person
behind has no chance to touch it with their card until
you get out of the way. It's your choice to do that in
'a second', not theirs.

tim

If you think that everyone queues up, patiently waiting to touch their
card against the reader, you've obviously never travelled on a London
bus.

Why is it obvious (and I can assure you it is false)

I didn't say that everyone qued up patiently. I said that
whether the next person pushes in front of you is
entirely up to you.

If you have a PAYG card, it is in your interest to make
sure that they don't. Not doing so is not an excuse for
missing the 'fail' beep.

tim

What you completely fail to acknowledge is that the driver also has a responsibility to alert the passenger to the fact that their card has not registered. Some do and some don't. I suspect that the driver didn't do it in this case because, like me, he didn't hear the machine beep twice in the scrum of passengers attempting to board the bus.

traveller wrote:
tim..... Wrote:

I didn't say that everyone qued up patiently. I said that
whether the next person pushes in front of you is
entirely up to you.

If you have a PAYG card, it is in your interest to make
sure that they don't. Not doing so is not an excuse for
missing the 'fail' beep.

What you completely fail to acknowledge is that the driver also has
a responsibility to alert the passenger to the fact that their card
has not registered. Some do and some don't. I suspect that the
driver didn't do it in this case because, like me, he didn't hear
the machine beep twice in the scrum of passengers attempting to
board the bus.

What you completely fail to acknowledge, apparently, is that it's your
responsibility to ensure that you pay for your journey. If you use a
PAYG Oyster without knowing what the balance is, and neglect to notice
both the red light and the reject bleep, then it's *your fault*. Stop
trying to blame the driver and the revenue inspector for your own
negligence.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Remind us all who said the following on another thread:

'There is indeed a coloured light that you could hardly miss if you were
interested in it, but TfL have never AFAIK told passengers to check that
it changes to green when they touch their Oyster cards on the reader.
In the absence of such advice, it's not surprising that people ignore
this unlabelled light and don't understand its significance.'

Oh that's right, it was YOU wasn't it, 'Richard J.'?! Make your mind up Mr. Self-Righteous!!!