Tram rides
Was taking a tram home last night and despite it being close to 9pm, tram conductors decided to pop up.
To give a bit of background, in Melbourne city itself, trams are the preferred mode of transport. You have to buy a ticket to ride on the tram. These tickets can be purchased either on the tram, where they are instantly validated or you can purchase them before hand and validate them when you're on the tram.
It's not perfect, and there are numerous cases of people cheating the system. There have been numerous ad campaigns urging people to validate their tickets. But still, the common method is to ride the tram with a ticket but not validate it. If they see a tram conductor, they will then have to try to validate the ticket before they get caught.
So anyway, there was this girl sitting across me in the tram. No kidding that she looked something like this:
which may or may not have been the reason I sat opposite her.
So when the tram conductor popped up, much to her horror, she desperately tried to validate her ticket before he could get to her, Unfortunately, she was sitting next to the door and was stopped by the tram conductor before she could do just that.
The poor girl was then quizzed and asked for her address so that the fine could be sent to her. But since she was from Hong Kong, hence not having a local identity card and address, the conductor was adamant about confirming her address, least she was giving a fake address. She was asked to call a friend so that that person could confirm her address. However, the friend on the phone gave the conductor his own address as he doesn't know where the girl stays.
The conductor was fuming now and inistent that the girl was trying to cheat her way out of a ticket and that it was now TWO offences. 1 for travelling without a valid ticket and the other one for lying about her address. At this point of time the girl was close to tears and trying to desperately explain her situation. Added to that, she was missing her stop. Another conductor had to come along to try to calm the situation down and ask that they get off and settle it off the train.
And that was the last of what I know of that.
Moral of the story? Nothing, though the girl was awfully cute.
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