Two weeks ago a 19-year-old Greek jumped off a moving trolley bus to avoid paying a fine for not having a validated ticket. He struck his head on the pavement and died. There are mixed reports: he struck the ticket inspector and a passenger who tried to intervene, or the inspector tore his T-shirt to try to restrain him, or in trying to save him. How did the door open while the trolley was in motion? How did the young man strike the back of his head--was he pushed, or did his foot get caught in the door as he was trying to flee? Here and here are just some of the theories. We won't know what really happened until the inspector and the driver are tried.
This incident caused a flurry of analyses in the local media. Was the lad a fare dodger? Was he one of the many unemployed youth of Greece who cannot afford even basics such as transportation? Some witnesses said he claimed he and his parents were all unemployed, perhaps to gain sympathy from the inspector and the passengers. But his parents later said they both had jobs, and they hired a lawyer to be their spokesperson in the media. Some passengers supposedly offered to pay for his ticket, but the inspector insisted on fining him.
Ticket inspectors in Greece are not all employed as such. Some are bus/trolley drivers who volunteer to do this additional "work" after hours or on their days off, because they can keep 40% of any fines they collect. This may explain the zeal of this particular inspector. It can, of course, not justify driving a person to their death.
The phenomenon of not paying one's transport fare is on the rise, or at least the inspectors are catching more dodgers. I have seen inspectors fining well-dressed people and people carrying shopping bags from boutiques, and this has been going on even before the financial crisis, so it is not always a case of a poor person who cannot afford the fare. I think in these cases it is part of the general mood of tax evasion. According to some reports the youth in the fatal incident actually had a ticket, but had not validated it. In fact it struck me that before the debt crisis I had only seen Greeks being caught by inspectors. The immigrants usually had tickets, perhaps because they were afraid of being asked for their papers. Now I also see immigrants without tickets.
Earlier this month I happened to be on a bus when a Greek man who did not have a ticket started shouting and running up and down the bus, then he tried to open the doors to jump off the bus, but luckily in his case they did not open. The inspectors let him off, when I asked them why they said he had a letter saying he had just been released from a mental hospital. But they did not let an immigrant get away with it even though he was waving a EUR 20 bill at them, saying he was on his way to renew his monthly pass, which he also showed them. I said to the inspectors that it was just the first of the month, surely they could give him the benefit of the doubt since they had just let the mental patient off, but they retorted that otherwise why should I be the dumb one who renewed my bus pass before the end of the month. I guess they were right but it seemed rather unfair.
A month or so ago they announced that all passengers would have to get on at the front of the bus, so the driver could check tickets or monthly passes. Other passengers would not be able to disembark until all new passengers had been checked. But this measure was only introduced on some bus lines, not all, so passengers were confused. And many drivers just waved people on without checking their tickets, either because they were opposed to the measure as just one extra duty added to an already difficult job, or because they saw that it would delay transport schedules even more.
I think the best solution would be to reintroduce bus conductors. When I first came to Greece they sat at the back of the bus, so everyone had to buy a ticket as they could not board the bus without going past the conductor. This would ease the unemployment situation, and the additional salaries would be more than covered by the additional tickets sold. If this is not feasible, then introduce an electronic ticket which beeps when valid, to speed up the check by the bus driver, and enforce it on all lines.
Already one person has died because of not paying a bus fare. How many more deaths will it take before the system is modernised?
This incident caused a flurry of analyses in the local media. Was the lad a fare dodger? Was he one of the many unemployed youth of Greece who cannot afford even basics such as transportation? Some witnesses said he claimed he and his parents were all unemployed, perhaps to gain sympathy from the inspector and the passengers. But his parents later said they both had jobs, and they hired a lawyer to be their spokesperson in the media. Some passengers supposedly offered to pay for his ticket, but the inspector insisted on fining him.
Ticket inspectors in Greece are not all employed as such. Some are bus/trolley drivers who volunteer to do this additional "work" after hours or on their days off, because they can keep 40% of any fines they collect. This may explain the zeal of this particular inspector. It can, of course, not justify driving a person to their death.
The phenomenon of not paying one's transport fare is on the rise, or at least the inspectors are catching more dodgers. I have seen inspectors fining well-dressed people and people carrying shopping bags from boutiques, and this has been going on even before the financial crisis, so it is not always a case of a poor person who cannot afford the fare. I think in these cases it is part of the general mood of tax evasion. According to some reports the youth in the fatal incident actually had a ticket, but had not validated it. In fact it struck me that before the debt crisis I had only seen Greeks being caught by inspectors. The immigrants usually had tickets, perhaps because they were afraid of being asked for their papers. Now I also see immigrants without tickets.
Earlier this month I happened to be on a bus when a Greek man who did not have a ticket started shouting and running up and down the bus, then he tried to open the doors to jump off the bus, but luckily in his case they did not open. The inspectors let him off, when I asked them why they said he had a letter saying he had just been released from a mental hospital. But they did not let an immigrant get away with it even though he was waving a EUR 20 bill at them, saying he was on his way to renew his monthly pass, which he also showed them. I said to the inspectors that it was just the first of the month, surely they could give him the benefit of the doubt since they had just let the mental patient off, but they retorted that otherwise why should I be the dumb one who renewed my bus pass before the end of the month. I guess they were right but it seemed rather unfair.
A month or so ago they announced that all passengers would have to get on at the front of the bus, so the driver could check tickets or monthly passes. Other passengers would not be able to disembark until all new passengers had been checked. But this measure was only introduced on some bus lines, not all, so passengers were confused. And many drivers just waved people on without checking their tickets, either because they were opposed to the measure as just one extra duty added to an already difficult job, or because they saw that it would delay transport schedules even more.
I think the best solution would be to reintroduce bus conductors. When I first came to Greece they sat at the back of the bus, so everyone had to buy a ticket as they could not board the bus without going past the conductor. This would ease the unemployment situation, and the additional salaries would be more than covered by the additional tickets sold. If this is not feasible, then introduce an electronic ticket which beeps when valid, to speed up the check by the bus driver, and enforce it on all lines.
Already one person has died because of not paying a bus fare. How many more deaths will it take before the system is modernised?
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