Complete Idiot's Guide to Fare Evasion

1) Fare evasion is best run as a numbers game. I tram to and from work everyday. With a yearly ticket this would cost me $1094, 12 monthly tickets would cost me $1228.80, or 52 weekly tickets would equate to a princely $1435.20.
In reality though I pay between $400 and $500 dollars. I achieve this by purchasing weekly tickets and only validating when absolutely necessary.

2) Fare evasion is a balance between the savings generated by buying fewer tickets and the increased expenditure due to fines levied against you for fare evading. The level of risk you wish to run in this balancing act will determine your success. Because fines are around $250, just 2 per year will eat up any profit you are making by fare evading. I personally try to make a 10-trip ticket last a month, and avoid fines altogether.

3) I limit my risk of being fined for fare evading by the following methods:
a- Where possible I sit at the back of the tram on the left-hand side, this way I can look out for inspectors and be close to a ticket machine if I do need to validate. Other good spots are at the very front of the tram (though inspectors can get on behind you) or next to the ticket machine (but limited visibility).
b- I always have my ticket close to hand.
c- I never read or allow myself to be similarly distracted.

4) Plain-clothes inspectors are a big risk. They often:
a- Stand together or sit together.
b- dress warmly, especially preferring beanies.
c- Do not carry bags.
d- Are larger guys.
e- Work in groups of 3 or 4 men and 2 women.
* Plain-clothes inspectors will always check to see if the ticket machine is working when they get on board.

5) If you are caught try and argue yourself out of a ticket on the spot. Do not be fooled by inspectors assuring you that they will ‘just write out an infringement for their records – head office won’t fine you.’
Sort out some plausible excuses beforehand. Preferably ones that can be enlarged upon later should you decide to contest the fine.

6) My expertise is confined to trams. On a train I always buy a ticket.

7) Now and again it’s nice to doze off or read your paper. Validate. After long periods of paranoia and laserlike attention such periods are quite relaxing - almost festive. Besides, it’s only $2.70.

A Rather Free-Ranging Ramble

I thought I should try and post something before the end of July since it’s been many months now since I tacked anything up here. My last missive was rather political/environmental – attacking my own upbringing as a son of the land! Not long after I wrote that I did some more research about some of the statements that I’d repeated. I found a very credible sounding article repudiating a lot of Jared Diamond’s facts and conclusions, something I was willing to go along with because one of the chief faults in Diamond’s Collapse is its lack of sources and figures.

But. This interesting article was from the journal Energy and Environment, which has a distinct lack of credibility due to its lack of peer review and industry sponsorship.

I hate conundrums such as this. Short of going out and learning climatology, soil science, agro-botany and a host of other disciplines then making one’s own measurements there are always competing points of view on controversial issues such as ‘should Australia largely abandon agriculture?’ That’s why we have peer-reviewed scientific papers. Diamond’s book maybe a long way short of rigorous science, but why couldn’t the article I read that contradicted his findings have been published in something a little more prestigious if the science it was espousing was so sound?

I suppose all of that is why I find the whole climate change ‘debate’ such a non-event. If 99% of the experts think we’re heading for a long hot future then I’m happy to agree.

Speaking of climate change, I saw in the news last night 3 consecutive stories that 15 years ago would have had no metanarrative, but today seem rather ominous: 1) the biggest floods in 60 years in Britain, 2) a massive heatwave in Greece, and 3) a very rare tornado in Poland.

I find myself very jealous of children being born now. Things have been chugging along very nicely for a few hundred years now, with essentially just more stuff and more convenience as the years roll on. By the end of my lifetime though there will be serious changes, but I’ll be dead by the time the world starts to take on its new shape. With no oil, massive population, and climate change all mixed together there will have to be some radical shifts to prevent us all lurching back to something approximating 1200AD.

I think our climate will end up at the hottest end of all the models – I couldn’t be more positive that we’ll burn every drop of oil we can possibly extract. So, very hot, no oil, and China and India wanting to live a Western middle class life. We could possibly try and use the 1000 to 1600 billion barrels of oil left to set up some sort of future society, but all good pessimists know we’ll just use it to kill people in the middle east and tool around town. Once it’s all gone our grandkiddies will have to get their shit done with something else – in a nice future that’ll be hydrogen or solar sourced electricity; in a bad future it’ll be horses or good old fashioned elbow grease. Maybe black people.