Another Bad Day For Oyster, Then

By Craigie_B Last edited 187 months ago
Another Bad Day For Oyster, Then
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You wait ages for a story about Transport for London (TfL), and then loads come along at once.

After the earth-shattering news that TfL staff sometimes use taxis (*clutch at pearls*), and heaps of other problems, today they lost a case in court as a customer successfully had his fare evasion conviction quashed.

He argued that customers should have been instructed to hear the correct beep and see the green LED light flash in order to reasonably know that their pre-pay Oystercard had worked.

Like everyone else, Londonist likes to be on the side of the common man against corporate intransigence, but this time we think we back TfL. We've all been sat on buses and seen people try to sneak past without paying - but the card reader beeps alarmingly against the reader to point them out. They know what they're doing. Now maybe we're becoming older and middle-class, but we are actually quite pleased that he was originally caught, though. We haven't seen inspectors on any of our bendy bus trips yet (mind you, we've not seen many fare-paying passengers on them either - particularly in the rear end bit).

Along with that £400k humdinger of a payment from TfL to Porsche to drop its legal challenge, this does show that the organisation may need a new legal team. Send the old one home in a cab.

Oyster pic from Chris Seufert's Flickrstream

Last Updated 15 August 2008