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The German group buying ticket dodgers out of prison
- 3327 3y ago[dead]
- j-pb 3y agoDüsseldof and now my home state of Bremen (the smallest city state of germany) have recently asked their state owned public transport company to no longer bring these cases to the police.[1] Sadly it's federal law so our local government can't change it, but at least this will keep people from going to prison in our small state. This law is actualy a remnant from Nazi Germany, and the german equivalent of last week tonight also reported on it.[2] 1: https://www.weser-kurier.de/bremen/politik/schwarzfahrer-sollen-in-bremen-nicht-mehr-ins-gefaengnis-doc7rtsz1qcx5g12gg0w59e https://www.weser-kurier.de/bremen/politik/schwarzfahrer-sol... 2: https://youtu.be/iWX3pqbidKk?si=8kCg-fgUWvZGPK2U https://youtu.be/iWX3pqbidKk?si=8kCg-fgUWvZGPK2U
- k__ 3y agoCouldn't they change their AGBs or something to convert this to an "Ordnungswidrigkeit"? Like, if you're caught without a ticket, you automatically buy a more expensive ticket via invoice or something and if you don't pay for it, then some debt collector will take care of it.
- Propelloni 3y agoHow is this supposed to work? You can't change (federal) law by arbitrary contract.
- k__ 3y agoIf people agree to automatically buy a ticket when entering a train, the law would never apply, since they always had a ticket.
- germanier 3y agoYou already agree to buy such an ticket (at the "erhöhtes Beförderungsentgelt" price) but there is no way to avoid a criminal law specifically designed for that situation by just changing the content of a contract.
- k__ 3y agoOkay. I didn't know that law was so specific. Sounds quite excessive for such an offence.
- expertentipp 3y ago[flagged]
- ivanche 3y agoOh man, this impossibility to cancel SEPA-Lastschrift based subscription should be criminally charged.
- expertentipp 3y agoAs a workaround I was buying annual ticket from the ticket machine at the platform, which then printed all 12 tickets in advance... but hell... why every alternative has to be so obnoxious.
- flopbob 3y agoYou might want to check your online banking portal thoroughly. I stumbled by accident over a semi-hidden place in mine that listed every SEPA Mandat and let me revoke them
- expertentipp 3y agoThis doesn't cancel the subscription. Now get ready for a furious avalanche of increasingly threatening letters and accumulating fines.
- petesergeant 3y ago> The "ticket controllers" are oftentimes some Turkish and Arabic punks. Could you explain what you mean by this?
- expertentipp 3y agoThe people responsible for checking tickets of the passengers. Their culture, patience, and refinement oftentimes is inadequate towards commuters who simply left the electronic card of paper ticket back home.
- 2rsf 3y agoThe Swedish planka.nu establish in 2001 collect money from members with the goal to pay fines for people evading paying subway fares, mostly as a way to protest against the raising prices.
- MandieD 3y agoThe semi-subsidized Deutschlandticket, valid on all transit that isn't a high-speed or mid-speed long distance train, is 49 EUR/mo, which I assume is less than it costs to keep someone for a day in minimum security jail. It's a nice subsidy for those of us who were already or were considering paying 60-100/mo for commuter tickets in our regions, but is still too much for a lot of the people who couldn't afford that, much less car ownership, in the first place.
- cheschire 3y agoImagine if DB went fully public again, and was entirely subsidized. So many other social welfare programs exist in Germany, why isn’t transport one of them anymore? There are lots of smaller programs like Schülertickets, why not just make it universal?
- mrparrot 3y agoLast year there was a brief period where the same ticket cost 9€/month. It was a success but discontinued for mainly political reasons. There is a fund however where you subscribe for 9€ and if you get caught riding without a ticket they pay your fine. Unfortunately, the threat of prison makes this idea not sustainable. But it is a nice display of hacker spirit.
- Arnt 3y agoThat's misleading wording. The political reason for discontinuing was that it was started as a limited-time, limited-cost experiment. I feel very strongly that states should be able to run limited-time, limited-cost experiment, even big expensive ones like this. That requires that people accept that the experiment ends, and do not expect it to be a new norm. If people expect an experiment to last forever, then it'll be too difficult to agree on what the next experiment may be. Besides, I feel that it's stupid to think that the terms/rules which were chosen quickly for an experiment happen to be the best ones for the long-term future. If anyone says so, I think that implies that they haven't really studied what happened in the experiment.
- 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- close04 3y ago> But the public transport companies take a harder line with serial offenders. They are the ones who are referred for prosecution, regardless of whether or not they've paid the penalty fare. Worth noting that in Germany the very same companies face 0 legal repercussions for the serial offense of not meeting their duties to the regular person, whether it's DB (the national railway operator), Lufthansa (national airline), or the local public transport systems. They repeatedly cancel trips without any compensation for ticket holders, and the default stance is that you have to chase them forever with forms sent via snail mail (!) even for the basic refund of the ticket, not even speaking of actual compensation. Or they will go on strike for days or weeks and have very low level of service or complete interruptions and in this case there is 0 recourse for any kind of refund even when a monthly public transport pass was 100+ EUR. Or the plane/train will be hours late costing you further expense, or the train stuck in the field for hours at a time due to malfunctions, they happen on a daily basis with 0 repercussions. They are literally allowed to repeatedly lie in the information to you during the resolution of such complaints and many times the only recourse is to involve a lawyer. The absolute worst that can happen to them in this situation is to have to fulfil their legal obligation (refund/compensation). There is no concept of anyone on that side being prosecuted for such things. At least with the new 50EUR Deutschlandticket people will suffer the same but for less money.
- derelicta 3y agoThat's what happens when infrastructures are massively underfunded
- kawhah 3y agoI went to catch a cross-country train in Berlin and was surprised to find out that it had unexpectedly left ~30 minutes earlier than planned, something I have never experienced in any mode of transport in any country, ever. I wasn't notified even though DB had my email address from my booking of a seat on that particular train. I had to get a later train and buy new tickets for my connecting Thalys trains at considerable expense.
- mbirth 3y ago
- knallfrosch 3y agoThe freedom fund could buy these person's tickets instead of wasting public ressources for controls, courts, police and prisons.
- kawhah 3y agoHow is the freedom fund the one wasting public resources?
- kfk 3y agoI am interested to learn from you how would that work considering there are a few million travelers using public transportation in Germany
- freilanzer 3y agoBecause the problem isn't the Nazi law here but treating the symptoms? Extremely strange take.
- martopix 3y agolet's leave the Nazi out of this tho
- freilanzer 3y agoNo, because this law has been introduced in Nazi Germany.
- P_I_Staker 3y agoThe nazis should be a part of most of our debates
- solarkraft 3y agoArne Semsrott is impressive. He also runs Frag den Staat, a (the) platform for freedom of information requests at the German Open Knowledge Foundation. He's the brother of the reasonably well known Comedian / Activist / EU-politican Nico Semsrott and somewhat involved in CCC circles (I walked by him at Camp).
- stef25 3y agoIf there's one thing worse than public transport it's the people who don't pay for it. People trying to slip through the gate behind you and then scream where's the solidarity when you don't allow them. In Berlin I remember just two "undercover" guys getting on the subway to check tickets, here in Brussels it's a squad of at least a dozen uniformed goons with multiple attack dogs. These groups are easily spotted and there's social media channels where they leak their locations. Sometimes you'll see an entire bus empty cause someone just announced that there's checks at the next stop. Meanwhile the employees of the company just watch the whole thing laughing. Nobody can't not afford public transport in EU, it's just that they choose to spend their money on something else and then scream poverty when they get caught. There are rules, this isn't Vietnam!
- martopix 3y agoYou don't seem to have read the article, since it gives the very relevant example of a recovering addict having to take the train to get methadone. > Nobody can't not afford public transport in EU This is a ridiculous take and I really invite you to examine your surroundings better. > There are rules, this isn't Vietnam! You even managed to close with a completely random racist remark.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoNot racist. The OP's reference is not to Vietnam the nation but Vietnam the war. It alludes to a classic quotation from The Big Lebowski.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Simulacra 3y agoI worked in Berlin for four months and never once bought a train ticket. There were no fair gates. No one else seemed to be buying tickets so I did not buy tickets. Never once was stopped or questioned, and it was the best public transit system I've ever seen. No public transit system in America can hold a candle to how clean, quiet, and orderly Berlin's public transit system is.
- apexalpha 3y agoI spent a few days in Berlin as a tourist, and I must say that if you do buy tickets it can be a bit daunting. Multiple machines for different Bahn companies, zoning that's not very well explained, multiple checking machines etc... In the Netherlands there is a single system for the entire country where you can just tap your transit or debit card and it goes. I'll keep your tip in mind next time, though. :)
- mahmoudhossam 3y agoThere's a ticket app that takes the guesswork out of buying a ticket in Berlin https://www.bvg.de/en/subscriptions-and-tickets/all-apps/ticket-app https://www.bvg.de/en/subscriptions-and-tickets/all-apps/tic...
- mindslight 3y agoIt doesn't appear to be in F-Droid or otherwise available outside of the proprietary walled gardens.
- r9295 3y agoYou can always buy one at any station and at most kiosks; even pay with cash!
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y agoAurora Store will help you with that.
- scotty79 3y agoI think public transit in cities should be entirely tax funded. More people in buses and such, less of them in cars on the street. It's just a good business for any congested city, which is pretty much all of them.
- p00dles 3y agoI 100% agree in principal, but I think there is something psychological about paying even a small amount of money that makes people treat public transit differently (better) than if it it’s entirely free. Sort of related, I can think of NYC charging $1 for a subway card, you don’t see discarded subway cards on the floor of the stations.
- tarballer 3y ago[dead]