Woman fined $219 for not paying bus fare with exact change

This happened in Montreal when a Mother and her son boarded a bus and when she realized she didn't have the change [$3 change fare] and offered the driver a $5 bill, which he replied he couldn't take. Then he told her if she didn't get off the bus, she would be fined for not paying.

With her two-year-old son, Xavier, in her arms, she had boarded the 108 Bannantyne bus home to Verdun around 10 p.m. after having spent five hours at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. She boarded the vehicle near Atwater Avenue and Ste-Catherine Street West.

She searched through her purse for $3 in change for the fare, but only came up with a $5 bill. She said she offered it to the driver, who refused because the fare machine doesn’t accept bills.

He warned her that failure to pay a fare could be bad news if the bus was to get inspected. Then the bus took off with Tantost and her son on board, while she clutched the $5 in her hand.

Two inspectors boarded the bus in Verdun at Bannantyne Street and Fourth Avenue, several stops before Tantost’s home. An employee of the STM later told her that it was purely a coincidence that the bus was inspected.

“I find that suspicious,” Tantost said.

Source

She had more than the $3 fare but they don't accept bills.
Even a passenger offered to pay her fare but they wouldn't accept that either.

A passenger on the bus, Darlene Cousins-Larsen, said one inspector entered the bus by the front door while another boarded through the back.

“They went right to the woman who was sitting behind the bus driver with the child. She had to get off the bus,” Cousins-Larsen said.

She said another woman on the bus with an invalid ticket was given a warning.

Embarrassed, she got off the bus with her son and stood on the sidewalk in tears. She walked the rest of the way home, with a ticket for a fine of $219.

In today's age, I can't believe they are not able to accept bills.
No compassion from the driver, that's for sure.

reply to post by snarky412


What an Ass Hat...
(The Driver)

What a world we live in!

The fact that they would not allow another passenger to pay the fair is absurd!

Well this actually matches my experience visiting Canada so I am not surprised they acted like D-bags. Enjoy the bureaucracy of communal style living folks!

-FBB

reply to post by rigel4


Yeah, I almost put this in the 'POSSE COMITATUS' forum.....
Maybe I should have.

I thought we had an atrocious transit service down here.

And we do.

This makes me really .. I don't even know.

I've never heard of a service that doesn't accept small cash fares. Paper or coin, it's legal tender. I can understand if it's a $100 or a $50 but a $5?

If someone else was offering to pay her fare, why didn't they just give her change in coins for the note?

Public transport really stinks... at least we only get stuck with a $100 fine if we don't have the correct fare. In fact, transperth are PROUD of that fact. They have a sign on their trains that reads :

"Last year, thousands of students failed this simple test and paid $100 fine."

and the test is a simple question asking if they have no student concession can they use their student card. No.

So they effectively admit to taking the cash the students paid, which would have been legit if they'd carried their concession card, but as they did not, they were fined $100 on top of the fare they purchased.

Thousands of them.. thats $100,000 MINIMUM a year they're bragging about stealing off students.. On top of the fare they paid. Which for students is not a lot, but a student here is often either working part time or getting government assistance.

For a service that treats you like cattle, piles as many of you on as they can and then tells you to stay at home, go on holiday or walk if they ever have to do maintenance on the track. you don't get anything if they're late or out of service and you cannot get somewhere you need to be... But if you're $1 short then you are offered no compassion as they count their revenue.

reply to post by snarky412


She should fight it.

It says right on the bill "for all debts public and private."
The bus driver took off that would be called kidnapping/abduction or some variation of it.

Originally posted by VforVendettea
reply to post by snarky412

 

She should fight it.

It says right on the bill "for all debts public and private."
The bus driver took off that would be called kidnapping/abduction or some variation of it.

She said she would and this is the response she got:

Tantost said she told the inspectors she would contest the fine, words that according to her were met with a laugh and a comment about how the only benefit of that would be the overtime the STM employee treating the file would earn.

The STM declined to comment.

This is ridiculous......:shk:

Originally posted by snarky412
Even a passenger offered to pay her fare but they wouldn't accept that either.

Reading the comments on that article, its clear that the other passenger offered to pay *AFTER* she was busted for travelling without a ticket.

You cant do that.

Originally posted by alfa1

Originally posted by snarky412
Even a passenger offered to pay her fare but they wouldn't accept that either.

Reading the comments on that article, its clear that the other passenger offered to pay *AFTER* she was busted for travelling without a ticket.

You cant do that.

The woman who was fined had a $5 bill, well over the fare, but the driver refused to accept it.
And yes, another passenger offered as well, but to no avail.
She wasn't mooching for a free ride, she just didn't have the appropriate change.

Yet there was another woman with an invalid ticket and only received a warning.

Originally posted by snarky412
The woman who was fined had a $5 bill, well over the fare, but the driver refused to accept it.

Well of course the driver refused to accept it.
His job is to drive the bus, and that alone.

Originally posted by snarky412
And yes, another passenger offered as well, but to no avail.

Reading the comments on that article, its clear that the other passenger offered to pay *AFTER* she was busted for travelling without a ticket.

You cant do that.

Originally posted by snarky412
She wasn't mooching for a free ride, she just didn't have the appropriate change.

Isabelle Tremblay, a spokesperson for the STM ... said that the ticket machines on STM buses were not equipped to take anything but coins. Montreal bus fare boxes do not accept bills.

Reading comments elsewhere on the net about this incident, its clear that this is one of the things that people hate about the bus system. But thats what it is, and its the same for everyone, and signs are displayed telling people this thing, and its also on the STM website.


But also, it turns out from reading other people's comments that you dont have to buy a ticket on the bus. You can also buy them from ticket offices off the bus before you get on:

And please, she was at the Atwater METRO where getting a bus ticket would have been easy as pie!

Incredulous. The bus driver warned her that if she stayed on the bus, she could end up fined. She chose to stay on the bus, now she is crying because she doesn't like the outcome of HER choice.

Originally posted by snarky412
Yet there was another woman with an invalid ticket and only received a warning.

This issue would not have gone away if the other woman got a fine as well.

Originally posted by alfa1

Originally posted by snarky412
The woman who was fined had a $5 bill, well over the fare, but the driver refused to accept it.

Well of course the driver refused to accept it.
His job is to drive the bus, and that alone.

Originally posted by snarky412
And yes, another passenger offered as well, but to no avail.

Reading the comments on that article, its clear that the other passenger offered to pay *AFTER* she was busted for travelling without a ticket.

You cant do that.

Originally posted by snarky412

She wasn't mooching for a free ride, she just didn't have the appropriate change.

But also, it turns out from reading other people's comments that you dont have to buy a ticket on the bus. You can also buy them from ticket offices off the bus before you get on:

Originally posted by snarky412
Yet there was another woman with an invalid ticket and only received a warning.

This issue would not have gone away if the other woman got a fine as well.

Okay, okay, no need to be so testy......
Point made

----------

ETA: I still agree with rigel4, the driver was an Ass Hat !!!!!

I think the biggest shame here is that the article didn't name the driver. I don't mean to do anything illegal or harmful to the guy. Not at all. However, if he'd be named in the local paper then EVERY business he goes to for quite some time can insure *HE* follows every single little B.S. rule to the letter, and not a single deviation for any reason, at any time. Period.

In fact...how about he get a HOME inspection. Is every tag still on every pillow and mattress in his home?? Is every single detail of his home, car and property in PRECISE compliance to EVERY line of code which exists? People can get downright medieval on a jerk like this.

He wants to bust people's chops and tell another passenger they can't pay the fare of a lady with a child? Well heck with him. he ought to suffer the life of a person held to EVERY silly regulation life can throw on him. See how HE likes life when everyone else is a cruel little tyrant to HIM.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
I think the biggest shame here is that the article didn't name the driver. I don't mean to do anything illegal or harmful to the guy. Not at all. However, if he'd be named in the local paper then EVERY business he goes to for quite some time can insure *HE* follows every single little B.S. rule to the letter, and not a single deviation for any reason, at any time. Period.

In fact...how about he get a HOME inspection. Is every tag still on every pillow and mattress in his home?? Is every single detail of his home, car and property in PRECISE compliance to EVERY line of code which exists? People can get downright medieval on a jerk like this.

He wants to bust people's chops and tell another passenger they can't pay the fare of a lady with a child? Well heck with him. he ought to suffer the life of a person held to EVERY silly regulation life can throw on him. See how HE likes life when everyone else is a cruel little tyrant to HIM.

According to alfa1, she was in the wrong no matter what, even though she offered the $5

----

ETA: And yes, I remove the tags from my pillows. Guilty as charged.......

reply to post by snarky412

Absurd...not to mention cruel punishment for the supposed infraction of not having "exact change". Bureaucrats that make these rules have no common sense as they can not allow for exceptions to the rule.

Originally posted by CosmicCitizen
reply to post by snarky412

 

Absurd...not to mention cruel punishment for the supposed infraction of not having "exact change". Bureaucrats that make these rules have no common sense as they can not allow for exceptions to the rule.

If I was the driver, I would have accepted the $5, let her ride, then change it when I got to the station.
Especially with her toting a 2 yr. old kid and it being night time.
But that's just me.

reply to post by snarky412


Indeed...and if some people had power to set policies and enforce them? The world would be a very cold, very hard and absolutely unforgiving place as every regulation and "role" was followed to the letter.

Personally? I think discretion is a very powerful thing anyone in "authority", even a bus driver, can choose to use in making someone else's life just a hair easier than it otherwise might have been. On the other hand, the lack of it can make another's life much harder than it otherwise needed to be. I'd say he walking home in early August because she didn't have exact change shows a hard and cold attitude.

Rules are needed. Discretion is what makes them workable, IMO.

Here in San Diego, if you have more than the fare, you're losing money. They don't make change. But! I will say that the drivers are always courteous. I have been warned about paying too much and not getting change. I have also been given tips by the drivers to reduce the fare I was paying every day. It was funny, the same driver would tell me every day that if I got the compass card (the transit systems bus pass that you pay a monthly fee on to ride anything as much as you want for like a month) the fare for an all day pass would be reduced.

Sad to hear this story.

Originally posted by snarky412

ETA: I still agree with rigel4, the driver was an Ass Hat !!!!

Why Because he isnt willing to be a change machine to every person who knows the rules but thinks they can get a freebie cause they are them and the world revolves around them

The fine should only maybe be 25 dollars, though. 219 is ridiculous. However, how often does buses come by? I know around where I live the buses come every 8 minutes or something. She chose to take the risk, knowing she had not payed. There was no emergency, or extenuating circumstances. She just didnt feel like getting change at a store or something and waiting a couple more minutes.

She rolled the dice and lost.

Originally posted by CaticusMaximus

Originally posted by snarky412

ETA: I still agree with rigel4, the driver was an Ass Hat !!!!

Why

Because he isnt willing to be a change machine to every person who knows the rules but thinks they can get a freebie cause they are them and the world revolves around them

The fine should only maybe be 25 dollars, though. 219 is ridiculous. However, how often does buses come by? I know around where I live the buses come every 8 minutes or something. She chose to take the risk, knowing she had not payed. There was no emergency, or extenuating circumstances. She just didnt feel like getting change at a store or something and waiting a couple more minutes.

She rolled the dice and lost.

edit on 8/3/2013 by CaticusMaximus because: (no reason given)

Evidently I'm not the only one that agrees with rigel4.........

Like I said earlier, if I was the driver, that would have never happened.
I'm a little easier going I guess.
She offered $5 and was willing to take a loss, fine by me.
I'd turn it in at the end of my shift.
No big deal.

For those that think that travel should be payed for, you honestly have a mental condition.