h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you don't have the exact ticket for your journey you will be fined ten pounds on the spot. It doesn't matter if all the machines at the unmanned station you started out from are broken, it doesn't matter that you didn't realise that Tooting Bec is in Zone Two and not Zone One, you either have to travel back to where your ticket is valid, go to the surface, buy another ticket and return or pay ten pounds, even although the difference in fare is actually about 50p. Do not imagine that if you point out you have the wrong ticket and go to the excess fare box at your destination station that they will let you pay the different, they won't.

I recently forgot to renew my monthly travelcard. On reaching King's Cross I could not get through the gates and approached a LU employee only to be asked to pay a £10 fine! what was I supposed to do? They do not check tickets on the way in to my local station but they offer no remedy if you make a mistake. I find it ironic that they expect you to be 100% perfect given the quality of service.

Since it is their policy not to stop people when they jump gates they are presumably suggesting that I should have done that to avoid a fine since honesty costs!


In the event I paid the full single fare of £1.70. I was sent a demand and a threat of court action for the remaining £8.30 by a collection agency but wrote back and politely told them to stuff it. I have heard nothing for 3 months.

If you refuse to pay any more than the fare that is due I believe there is not much they can do.

I have reason to believe that Tube staff are acting, on occasions, illegally. The way I read the London Transport (Penalty Fares) Act 1992 (and it's only by going into London University library that I managed to see a copy - it's a private Act so is not generally available), the penalty fare of £10 is only chargeable if a member of Tube staff challenges you to produce a ticket. If you own up voluntarily, the penalty fare is not payable. Of course, on the times I have managed to leave my Travelcard at home, hence been unable to get through the barriers at the other end, and then gone to the excess fares window, I have been charged £10. Quoting the Act on the appeal form has always resulted in a refund. Now if I could get them to refund the unnecessary postage as well...