To not pay my bus fare (London bus)

[KatRee]

Got on the bus today with my 1-year-old in the pushchair and my 3-year-old, who was walking. We went through the doors at the back to get directly into the wheelchair/pushchair space.
As soon as we got on, the announcement was played: “For your child’s safety, please stay with your buggy.” There were no seats, so my eldest also had to stand with us and hold on tight to keep his balance. I needed to supervise him to make sure he was doing that.
There were people standing in the aisle, so I couldn’t easily get to the front to tap my card to pay. So I ended up not paying.
This has happened maybe 2 or 3 times before since I’ve had kids and I always feel like I’ve done something wrong! But I’m not really sure what’s expected.
Usually we either get on at the front if the aisle is clear, as I have a little pushchair that fits down it, or we get on at the back, I quickly put the brake on, my eldest sits down and I run to the front and back to tap before the bus sets off.

Was I unreasonable not to pay today?
YABU – It’s basically stealing – pay your fare!
YANBU – For the love of God woman, supervise your small children and don’t worry about depriving TfL of £1.75!

Agree with PP they had them on the middle doors but people thought that meant they could get on at the middle and most wouldnt actually tap in so they removed them

Leave a 3 Yr old alone on a busy bus in London??! Thankfully this lady is responsible and has enough awareness to see what could happen, even in 15 seconds. Accidents happen in a split second.

There should be a tapping point by the exit as well as the front.

Have you tried it? I have and you get more grief doing that than if you haven't paid.

Well, you are clearly a very infrequent user of buses!
I have witnessed this on multiple occasions and I have my own personal experience of this also.
Totally packed buses and no room to move.

Exactly, they should have a payment point near the buggy space so people can pay without leaving a pushchair unattended.

Everything else OK but why would she give her card to a bunch of strangers???

Wow!

Good point, the tech exists now though to count numbers getting on/off and flag the driver if there are not enough taps, but I suppose that would lead to stand offs with non payers shouting back at the driver that they did tap their card and then the rest of the bus is going to kick off at the delay.

What, even if there are no wheelchair users on the bus?
I agree that wheelchair users have priority and rightly so but in reality, people in OP's position are not in a position to collapse a pushchair whilst caring for babies and small children.

Or she could have climbed over the strangers heads to tap like the final scene in "Crocodile Dundee"?

Loads of people dont pay. Ive seen it . And with trains with the high vis people watching . Happens many times a day not paying . I told my son the other month I was getting pissed off keep seeing it as its not bloody cheap , he was amused I was in the minority that pays
Im london too

I rarely go to London these days but when I do TFL have always overcharged me even when I have been very careful about tapping on and off.
Their website never works and claiming back is such a faff I don’t bother for a couple of quid.
So feel like I’ve paid already in lieu of you.

If you mean buses....you don't need to tap off.
You're paying twice if you do that.

Wow, so many unfeeling comments on this thread! In my area of London, there are MANY buses which have aisles that are too narrow for my single buggy. It’s on the wider side, but not enormous. I used to always try to board at the front but after a few instances of getting stuck in the aisle and having to back up- with SO much tutting and eye-rolling from the other passengers- that I now default to using the middle door and trying to dash to the front.
I would NEVER pass my card or my phone or let my child out of my sight in my area. It’s just not safe. Maybe other posters live in lovely enclaves of London but the whole city certainly isn’t like that and as a parent I wouldn’t risk our safety like that.
And it’s certainly not safe to get your child to walk up the aisle or leave them standing by the buggy - I’m heavily pregnant and at least half of my recent bus journeys have involved the driver zooming away whilst I’m waddling to the front to pay, causing me to lurch and have to catch myself using the poles. A child would have gone flying!

I’ve always managed to find a way to pay so far, but I can easily see how a situation like the one the OP describes could arise once I’m juggling a toddler and a baby and I would make the exact same judgement call.

Thank you- that’s what I was trying to say earlier- delaying a London bus, eg by trying to push a pushchair from the front down a busy aisle is always met by far more disapproval than anyone not tapping is. Never seen anyone comment on that other than the driver, but people will loudly complain about anyone holding the bus up unnecessarily (eg for wheeling a pushchair through from the front rather than just getting it on at the back.

i think maybe a lot of people commenting this are outside of London in places where buses only have the front set of doors, so of course everyone has to get on there and people therefore have to be patient and move for a pushchair, whereas here everyone would just want to know why in earth you didn’t just get on at the back?

I can totally understand this is the reason as we’ve probably all been on buses where someone has not even tapped on at the front right when they’ve got on right in front of the driver, and the driver has then refused to go anywhere. I can imagine it being very difficult to enforce payment if the driver can’t even see who’s tapping. It’s a shame that it seems they’ve not found something workable to avoid this.

😂😂😂

Thank you! Appreciated coming from someone who understands the situation. I also found it really difficult navigating the buses with a pushchair when pregnant and that waddle down the aisle to tap in whilst praying the pushchair didn’t tip over.

Well in London many moons ago they did have something workable, it was called a bus conductor, of course there were still fare dodgers and people used to hop on at the back of the old style double deckers at lights or slow parts of the road and hitch free rides for a while then jump off if challenged, but there is something about a human actually physically coming up to you for payment that makes most people want to pay up.

Why should you be an exception? People not paying their fare is a major contributing factor in rising fares- it takes literally seconds to tap in.

London not getting Andy"s two quid bus fares then? They rolled it out in some parts of Scotland very quickly after he announced it which was surprising to me, Edinburgh and The Lothians excluded of course because they think everyone is loaded.

You would pass your bank card down via whole bunch of people in London? Absolutely not. Are you from a small village or something?

London doesn't need the £2 fares because they're already £1.75.

Except it doesn't take seconds if you physically cannot get to the front of the bus.
Which is a common occurrence on London buses if you enter with a pushchair through the middle doors - which the drivers usually ask you to do.

Only thing I’ll say is please don’t call it a “wheelchair/pushchair space”. It’s a wheelchair space. Anyone else can use it if it’s empty, but it must be vacated for wheelchair users. Using the right language helps to remind people who that space is actually for, as wheelchair users have huge problems with parents who use the space thinking it’s first come first serve and refuse to move, leaving them stranded waiting for the next bus (where the same thing often happens again). Wheelchair users campaigned for that space for years and can’t travel without it.

(I’m not saying you personally wouldn’t have moved, I’m just saying using the right language to describe that space is important).