Swedish Fare Dodgers Organize Against Transportation Authorities 389
An anonymous reader writes "Every transit network has its fare beaters, the riders who view payment as either optional or prohibitively expensive. Many cities, most notably New York, view turnstile-jumpers as a top policing priority, reasoning that scofflaws might graduate to more serious crimes if left alone. But in Stockholm, the offenders seem to have defeated the system. From the article: 'For over a decade, Mr. Tengblad has belonged to a group known as Planka.nu (rough translation: “free-ride.now”), an organization with only two prerequisites for admission: Members must pay a monthly fee of about $15 and, as part of a continuous demonstration against the fare, promise to evade payment every time they ride. If travelers keep their side of the agreement, the group will cover any of the roughly $180 fines that might result. (An unlimited ride pass for 30 days costs about $120.)'"
Insurance (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just an insurance scheme. With heavier penalties, it would not work.
Re:Insurance (Score:5, Insightful)
With heavier penalties, it would not work.
If heavier penalties fixed anything, nobody in the USA would do drugs or drive drunk.
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Re:Insurance (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the low level that's required to "blow over" for the last 10+ years? Pretty sure we've got a problem, considering two off the shelf beers will put you over the legal limit in most places, or a run-of-the-mill mixed drink.
Re:Insurance (Score:5, Insightful)
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Head out for a meal with your S/O and don't have a beer. Have something else instead. It's really not rocket science. No, it's not A-OK to be driving on prescription drugs that limit your ability to drive either.
One beer puts you over the limit? Not here. (Score:3)
I don't know where you are posting from, but here in the USA one beer with dinner will not put you over the legal limit. Even for a very petite woman, consuming one beer over the course of a dinner will barely get your BAC above 0.03%. The limit in the USA is 0.08%.
Even if you are in a jurisdiction where one beer puts you over the limit, get real. You are talking about operation of machinery that is highly dangerous when operated improperly. Aircraft pilots are in the same situation, and they are proh
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It should be two cocktails by your reckoning, unless the cocktails are being mixed too strong. (which, if the numerous restaurant/bar improvement reality shows are any indication is pretty much a near-certainty...)
And the problem is that if you're going to set a limit based on blood concentration, you have to choose where that limit is. If you choose too high of a limit, there is a chance that some subset of the population will be (even slightly) impaired, and you'll get the blame when one of those people
Re:Insurance (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a certain addictive feeling that comes with stealing (or breaking the law, or simply lying habitually) and getting away with it. Similar to a "runner's high", but with less running.
As with any drug, repeated exposure builds tolerance, doubly-so for a "drug" created by a stressful situation that isn't as stressful the second time around.
This is why people who are addicted to "getting away with it" feel the need to escalate to bigger and bigger risks, in order to chase that same high.
This is why Sweden doesn't want people to get "addicted" to fare jumping, they are afraid that it might escalate into something more
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In some cases thought it's just about what makes financial sense. I asked a bus driver in Austria once what was the cheapest way to get to my school for the next 3 months. He replied the cheapest was is to keep 50euro on you and simply pay the fine whenever you get caught.
That is also exactly what I did. I got caught twice. All in all I was still miles ahead financially. No rush required.
Re:Insurance (Score:5, Interesting)
Singapore on the other hand, has a consistent and well-enforced policy: sell drugs, you get executed. Note that drug usage in SG is near zero.
How do you know? An alternative theory is that the penalty just makes those that disobey the law more careful.
For a tiny city state, it seems to have an awfully busy Narcotics Bureau, with many sizable drug trafficker incidents.
http://www.cnb.gov.sg/newsroom... [cnb.gov.sg]
That's not near zero.
In any country, the number caught is a fraction of the number that are not caught. It's quite likely that the fraction is even lower in Singapore as dealers take more care.
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OK, technically that's true, but historically the federal government doesn't get involved in drugs unless it's happening across state or national borders, and that rarely affects the average person.
Not counting the drugs that the CIA is secretly selling, or congress is secretly snorting, of course.
(seriously, D.C. has the highest percentage of cocaine-contaminated $20 bills out of the entire nation)
Re:Insurance (Score:4, Interesting)
The feds have stepped in before to shut down operations with no evidence of cross-border activity. If the trade of it crosses the border somewhere, the feds have jurisdiction. Just like in-state kidnappings are under the jurisdiction of the feds (if they want it). Because some kidnappings sometimes cross borders, the feds can assume that all do.
The Feds have stepped all over states' rights since the founding of this country; moreso in the past few decades. The states have finally begun to take notice and many are working to reclaim those rights. The Feds have only been able to get away with it for so long because the states didn't try to stop them. With that changing, things are going to get more and more interesting. As evidence, there have been many recent proposed amendments to state bills on everything from guns to Marijuana that have directed state police to prevent Federal authorities from enforcing Federal laws contrary to the state laws where the state is given priority in the Constitution or at least to not assist Federal authorities in executing such Federal laws. Some have even called for the arrest of Federal authorities taking such actions. While these have been largely defeated thus far, the idea of proposing them would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. There's been a progression that seems to be leading toward state authorities actively resisting Federal authorities enforcing apparently unconstitutional laws.
Ah, so the Supreme Court is wrong, and you are right. But nobody listens to you, so I'll quote the Supreme Court before you.
Not the first time the Supreme Court has been wrong. The Supreme Court decided "separate but equal" was constitutional. It decided Japanese interment was constitutional. And it was apparently constitutional to fire teachers who were members of "subversive" groups. Well, at least until the Supreme Court reversed itself. That's happened numerous times before and it'll almost certainly happen again.
The Supreme Court can rule that Catholicism is the national religion of the United States and that everyone in the US must convert to and practice it zealously. That doesn't make it correct. It can rule that a Federal law stripping all registered Democrats of the right to vote is constitutional. It isn't. Our system of government is imperfect, as is every other. It's run by imperfect humans who are subject to any number of influences that can impede their objectivity. We the people need to stand up, collectively, when our government gets something wrong and get it fixed; not throw our hands up and declare all hope lost because the Supreme Court issued a ruling. We need to be able to do that without a full blown revolution too, since those tend to be very bloody, expensive, and destructive. The way we seem to be tending toward handling this is through our state governments. I think that's one of the healthier ways to correct Federal mistakes and I hope to see the trend continue. As the states assert an increasing level of sovereignty, we'll see the power and scope of the Federal government diminish. Hopefully, that continues until it no longer has such horrifyingly complete dominion over the citizens of the United States.
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I'd disagree. There was an article on /. a while back that it is better to have a small penalty that is heavily enforced than it is to have a large one that is not often used.
For example, if there was a 100 SEK (~ $15.00) fine every time a turnstile jumper did their act, and it was enforced to the point where if someone did that act, they would get a citation and have to pay the fee, the turnstile jumping would stop. However, if there were a $1000 SEK fine, but only one in 100 people got busted for it, th
Thiefs think others should pay (Score:5, Interesting)
Thiefs think others should pay, news at 11.
I'm from Sweden and well aware of the idiots who think they have the right to pay when others do pay.
They simply suck.
I wish they all got caught and I wish everyone reported these idiots when they saw them.
I still hate that I didn't when I saw someone jump in the back of the bus once here in Örebro.
(Supposedly the immigrants in an immigrant dence part of the town have been doing this / (possibly threatening / ignoring the bus driver) here too.)
Ass-holes, nothing to brag about. Shouldn't any idiot understand that everyone should contribute to the society to get the benefits out from it?
You're free to believe that the fares should be free but not paying isn't the way to make it so. Do it politically and pay through taxes (most of these idiots are likely youths or leftish individuals who don't work anyway) and also realize that demand on transports would increase if everyone could travel for free.
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You're free to believe that the fares should be free but not paying isn't the way to make it so. Do it politically and pay through taxes
They are doing. Civil disobedience is the primary way of getting political change. Democracy is broken in most countries.
(most of these idiots are likely youths or leftish individuals who don't work anyway)
Your bias and distain is noted. A more balanced view is that most fare dodgers are poor people. People for whom the fares are a more significant part of their income (if any).
It's an unofficial form of redistribution of wealth. And indeed that's the political argument for having it paid for out general of taxation.
Re:Thiefs think others should pay (Score:5, Insightful)
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Another option is to save money on enforcement and accept that there will be some "cheating". Vancouver's Skytrain system has operated for almost 30 years with no fare-gates - it has always been kind of nice to feel that people were trusted to pay their way.
Unfortunately many people felt that there were too many cheaters, so they have decided to put up expensive gates to make cheaters less able to cheat. The expected cost of the gates and related infrastructure are much greater than the estimated amounts "l
In the US the people running the organization (Score:5, Insightful)
would be charged with criminal conspiracy.
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Conspiracy like racketeering is one of the totalitarian catch all offenses put in place to counteract the radical spirit of the constitution and is a great way to deprive someone of civil rights when you don't like them. Free countries who have an enlightened populace and a government which represents them and not control will police actual committed crimes and not just talking about crimes.
Re:In the US the people running the organization (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, what kind of barbaric country would stop people from planning to kill somebody?
RICO, the primary American anti-racketeering law, has been used against political protesters.
Re:In the US the people running the organization (Score:4, Insightful)
Political protest is not illegal in the US. However, breaking laws as a form of political protest (or as a means of generating income, or whatever other purpose you can think of for breaking laws) is illegal.
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How about if you plan to trespass because the 'Free Speech Zone' (tm, pat pend) is located 20 miles away in a barbed wire cage inhabited by plague infested rats?
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Sigh... I remember when the entire country was designated as a "Free Speech Zone".
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breaking laws as a form of political protest is illegal.
Yes, it is illegal. But it is NOT "racketeering". If someone is disrupting traffic, or making excessive noise, it is reasonable for them to face the legal consequences, even if they are doing so as a political protest. But it is not reasonable for them to be subjected to excessive penalties meant to be targeted at organized crime. Do you think that black people illegally sitting in the "whites only" section of restaurants in the 1960s were "racketeers"?
Re:In the US the people running the organization (Score:4, Informative)
When RICO was used against political protesters, it was not used by prosecutors or police. It was used by their political opponents in a civil suit, and the penalties were not accessed against the protesters (who broke the law), but against the organizations the protestors were assumed to be representing, many of which did not condone the law breaking. This was not at all an attempt to punish lawbreaking, but was a clear attempt to silence dissent. In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously [nytimes.com] against this particular abuse of racketeering laws.
In the US the people running the organization (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the US "justice" system is such a shining example for the world. Threatening college students with decades of prison for "stealing" public research papers. Approving no-knock warrants resulting in hundreds if not thousands of innocent deaths. Militarization of police forces and the use of SWAT teams for even the most benign crimes. Crushing people pirating a few songs/movies with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Yes, the rest of the world would do well to emulate us.
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If they remove the requirement that you must break the law, then it is probably legal as a type of insurance. For example, there exists in the US insurance for speeding, expired tags, etc. that will pay your fine. You just have to phrase it as "if you forgot and broke the law accidentally, we will cover your ticket".
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Can you point out where such insurance is sold? I have never heard of it.
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In my part of the U.S. the paying customers would just collectively stomp the shit out of mr. Tengblad. But we don't have trains, or other energy and environment saving public transportation required for a more livable and sustainable world.. Everybody loses.
There. FTFY
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Cities that grew before automobiles and mass-transit tended to be based around the "the 12-block walk". Most people aren't willing to walk more than 12 blocks to get to work/play (and many were too poor to own and maintain a horse). This meant that most cities (or semi-independant business districts, in the case of larger cities) were limited to 12 blocks for a long period of time, and became more dense over time, instead of becoming larger.
When mass-transit was invented (still pre-automobile) it was still
Re:In the US the people running the organization (Score:5, Interesting)
Taking advantage of loop-holes is perfectly legal and extremely American. We have always been about following the letter but not the intent of the law which is why we're still arguing about guns, abortion, and grazing fees on federal land. Mitt Romney takes advantage of loop-holes in tax laws to hide his money from US taxes by shuffling it around shell corporations in the Cayman islands. Mitt pays accountants and lawyers to set all that stuff up. The whole reason the US produces so many lawyers is to help rich people and corporations walk right up the the often fuzzy line between what is legal and what isn't.
Taking advantage of loop-holes is not the same thing as breaking laws. The people in Sweden are breaking laws by not paying for tickets to ride mass transit. The group that is encouraging and assisting them to break the law is no different that any other organized criminal gang. Now that they've invented/discovered the advantage of organizing criminal activity (duh!), I wonder what business they might get into next. I hear there's a lot of money to be made in drugs and prostitution.
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Breaking SOME laws is not wrong, but breaking ANY law IS illegal.
Re:In the US the people running the organization (Score:4, Insightful)
Chapter 23 of the Swedish Penal Code is titled "On Attempt, Preparation, Conspiracy and Complicity".
Public transit (Score:4, Insightful)
Or the Transit Authority can lower the monthly cost for a full time rider to $14.99, and get the government to covere the difference from tax revenue. It is a socialist country you know.
Just increase the tax on petrol (or whatever is Swedish for gasoline)
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Or... they could just raise the fine to €2000, then they'll have to raise the monthly membership to €167 to compensate, and it'll be cheaper just to get a monthly pass.
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They can't raise the fine that much since the fine needs to remain reasonable for those that simply forgot their ticket or lost it.
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I suspect that would be impossible from a legal standpoint since that would require a database of offenders and there are extremely strict regulations on such a thing. Essentially only the police are allowed to do it and they're only allowed to do it if its a criminal offence or necessary for an investigation.
Since
A) The transport authority is not the police
B) This is not a criminal offence
C) This is not part of an investigation
It is unlikely they would be allowed to do such a thing.
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B) This is not a criminal offence
Isn't it? In many countries fair dodging is a crime, rated similar to theft of a small amount of money. And I can't see what makes you think it is illegal for a company to keep track of who they found cheating on them.
Re:Public transit (Score:5, Informative)
The fine you get when you're caught dodging the fare is legally not a fine but a punitive ticket price(straffavgift). If you're caught by the police dodging the fare (Sometimes they stand around trying to catch criminals or illegal immigrants) then you get an actual fine (ordningsbot) which is actually not covered by planka.nu and can show up on your permanent record.
Essentially it's important to understand that Sweden makes an extremely clear distinction between those that have the authority to handle criminal matters and those who do not, the metro does not.
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it would be cheaper to do an estonian thing and just make it free: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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So people who drive cars, and therefore use public transportation less or not at all, should pay more so that people who do use the system pay less?
that's socialism for you. in other news, the old people who are too sick to work are in old peoples service homes paid by the people who work and don't need such service homes....
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No, that's not socialism, that's simply public policy trying to drive lower resource consumption. The government would rather that its citizens burn fewer resources, so they make the less efficient solution more expensive, and the more efficient one cheaper.
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Yes. You got it. Instead of clogging the street with your SUV to transport a single person, use a more sensible way of transport.
Re: Public transit (Score:4, Insightful)
So people who drive cars, and therefore use public transportation less or not at all, should pay more so that people who do use the system pay less?
Well, the drivers get the very real benefit of fewer vehicles on the roads. Even if we ignore Stockholm's (very good) subway system, a bus carrying 40 passengers probably means 15+ cars that are not on the road.
Re: Public transit (Score:4, Informative)
So people who drive cars, and therefore use public transportation less or not at all, should pay more so that people who do use the system pay less?
Absolutely! That's how you tackle congestion. The more people that use cheap public transport the less cars there are on the road.
Did you know that the American cities that used to have good public tram systems lost them because the automobile industry bought them out and scrapped them, so people had no choice but to buy a car. That misdeed needs undoing.
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(or whatever is Swedish for gasoline)
Schveetbang.
Gesundheit.
Re: Public transit (Score:2)
Their school system would be seen as an extreme right-wing proposal here I am afraid, which is a shame, as it's a damn good one.
Care to elaborate? I live in a Scandinavian country too and I'm curious about what's american-right-wing about our school system :)
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School choice is pointless. Every parent wants the same thing - the best education for their child. A choice of bad schools is no choice at all, and a choice of good schools is irrelevant.
If there are some schools and some bad schools: Having everyone pick the good school in an area and a random set of them being successful again is no choice. The effort should be spent on bringing the bad schools up to scratch, or closing them. Not going through some pointless choice system.
School choice is on the right wi
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Umm... well Stockholm is quite a bit of a city, but what the hell makes your public transport system that expensive? Ours is subsidized, true, but we're a far cry from such prices. 2 bucks across town, about 50 for a month ticket and somewhere around 500 (that includes free guarded parking at the edge of the city).
And that system is fast, clean and reliable.
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around 500 for a year. Gee, I should start to proofread...
In other parts of the world... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is known as organized crime.
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What has the government got to do with a private company, and some private individuals avoiding paying for the services they agreed to pay for?
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Depends on whether public transport is actually privately run there or whether it's part of the public service offered by the town itself, funded (partly) with tax money. BIG difference there.
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and some private individuals avoiding paying for the services they agreed to pay for?
Agreed to pay for? Somehow I doubt the fare dodgers ever signed some kind of agreement to pay. Although I suppose I could be wrong. Do you have any evidence to back up that claim?
hike up the fines (Score:2)
According to TFA, the organization that pays of the fines is currently profitable because it rakes in twice the money as it pays off in fines. It seems simply raising the fines would quickly make that unprofitable.
Re:hike up the fines (Score:4, Interesting)
Since the fine is apparently equal to 12 months of fees to the organization, that implies people only get caught once every two years. As a turnstile jumper you'd actually be better off not being in the organization and putting that $15 a month into a bank account to pay the ticket.
If the government put a couple extra cops on the ticket turnstile beat and doubled the amount of tickets you issued they'd only break even, and if they tripled the number of tickets the group'd start losing cash. If the average jumper starts getting caught every 8 months, that's 1.5 times a year, which means they pay fines of $270, and an insurer needs $22.50 a month in revenue to cover costs. The best strategy would probably be to double the fine and double enforcement on the train lines for a few months. Either option makes the group break even, and combined they'd mean the group has to double it's fee.
Of course back in the real world the Swedish authorities could easily conclude this is just mischievous kids being mischievous, and therefore the group should not be forced out of business.
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If they tried that the transport authority would go bankrupt within the month. They operate on near zero margin and theres no way they could find the money to double enforcement.
Re:hike up the fines (Score:5, Insightful)
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I like your idea, I agree it is better than mine. I'm not sure I buy the "forgotten ticket" line though. I admit my total ignorance of the public transit system in Sweden, but where I live, we are issued permanent tickets cards . My card is at all times in my wallet, and it can even be registered so that I can get back my monthly pass in case I lose my card.
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Indeed, but it would probably require to hire more security staff, which increases the costs of running public transit for everyone.
Not heroes (Score:5, Insightful)
These people are parasites, and leeches, whose evasion is helping to drive UP the cost for everybody else.
Public transportation is en expensive service, mostly subsidized through taxes, these hypocritical parasites help make it that much more expensive for everybody else.
I hope the Swedish authorities take an idea that was floated when the same was about to happen in Denmark.
The fines the "organization" pay, are to be treated as taxable income.
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Eh, at 3% of the fares as estimated by the transit authority they're a negliable amount of the commuters and probably cost vastly less then the measures put in place to attempt to 'stop' them.
Besides as noted in the article evasion itself is not the point, they're a semi-political movement that thinks that public transport should be 100% public funded rather then as is 50% which is why they're against false tickets.
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Even if they catch them red-handed, the security guards only have the authority to evict them from the station, they don't have the authority to detain them.
Personally I used to jump the turnstiles when I was a kid partly because the free pass we got as high school students only worked daytime and the tickets are really expensive when you're that age and partly because it's fun jumping over them. It seems to me the only thing SL gained by upgrading to these new machines is that now the ordinary commuters ge
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These people are parasites, and leeches, whose evasion is helping to drive UP the cost for everybody else.
Public transportation is en expensive service, mostly subsidized through taxes, these hypocritical parasites help make it that much more expensive for everybody else.
I hope the Swedish authorities take an idea that was floated when the same was about to happen in Denmark.
The fines the "organization" pay, are to be treated as taxable income.
And give them free advertisement in the form of news coverage and other attention?
Planka.nu state that they have 600 members in the Stockholm metro area. That's about 0.03% of the population and perhaps 0.1% of daily transit travelers. They also state that all of their surplus revenue goes towards flyers and stickers and other means of spreading the word. Advertisement is hard, especially when you're barred from using billboards and other conventional outlets.
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I imagine that most people in the Stockholm metro area know about Planka and many of them support them philosophically. The reason their members are so few is because it's a hassle to always have to bypass the entrence and it can be kinda embarrasing to get caught.
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Keep in mind three things:
1) According to the article this is 3% of fares.
2) According to the article most of the group members are High School Age.
3) This is Sweden. Joining a Union devoted to publicly pressuring the government to reduce fares is precisely the kind of thing every patriotic Swede wants his 16-year-old doing, because a lot of things a rebellious 16-year-old considers doing are much worse for society then free subway rides.
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There's a problem with this claim. Similarly to file-sharers, they don't *actually* cost the transport companies any money.
1. It assumes they would pay if not the scheme. It doesn't assume they would take alternate transport medium.
2. It assumes all the income is from the tickets. It disregards both tax-funded subsidies (from 'freeloaders' tax money) and the punitive charges income (no matter if paid by given freeloader alone or from 'insurance')
3. It assumes cost scales linearly with the number of passenge
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These people are parasites, and leeches, whose evasion is helping to drive UP the cost for everybody else.
Although you call them names you haven't offered any sort of moral argument as to why what they are doing is wrong. How exactly do they raise costs?
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Public transportation is en expensive service, mostly subsidized through taxes, these hypocritical parasites help make it that much more expensive for everybody else.
Until you start paying a toll box at the end of your driveway, stop bitching about people fare-evading or the cost of public transit projects.
If it's "mostly subsidized through taxes", then why are there (rather significant) fares, and why is fare evasion such a massive issue? It's either "public" or it isn't, and it's either "mostly subsidize
Transit is cheap ... (Score:2)
At $120/month for a pass, you're probably paying less to use transit than you would pay for gasoline. On top of that, you don't have the expense of purchasing and maintaining a car, insurance, or parking.
On top of that, people who cannot drive or cannot afford to drive usually have access to cheaper bus passes. Those who live in walkable or bikeable communities have the choice of paying a single fare when they need the service, rather than having to deal with the full expense of car ownership for the few
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According to the article most of the group's members are under the age of 18. In the unlikely event mom bought them a car, instead of simply insisting they bike everywhere, they would not be paying any of the bills.
And let's be honest here, if you're under-18 in Sweden this is an incredibly patriotic form of teenage rebellion. You've joined a collective, which responsibly manages it's finances (it turns a fucking profit!), and has the political goal of increasing equality by reducing subway fares poor peopl
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The PM couldn't because that would be highly illegal. The way the Swedish goverment is set up the ministers are not allowed to make executive decisions, they are only allowed to make policy decisions that are then executed by the public servants.
You're also probably more correct then you are aware. Planka.nu as an organisation actually recieves state support as the Swedish state supports political organisations in general.
Easy to fix (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's more clever then my proposal of 200 cops writing tickets, but it's got the disadvantage that the group would probably figure out what was going on quite quickly, and throw the staff out. If they're really keeping halof the revenue they earn as profit then they've got a cushion, so clever moves they can counter by being more clever aren't a long-term solution.
Moreover it ignores the fact that most members of this groups aren't 40-something stockbrokers, they're High School kids.
Can you think of any fo
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Committing crimes in order to deal with freeriders is not a particularly good career move in Sweden.
Re:Easy to fix (Score:4, Interesting)
That is a very good idea! But as a person who travels using the Stockholm public transport every day I must add that the problem is far bigger than just "planka.nu". It is effectively free to use the public transport in Stockholm. I see at least five different ways people avoid paying. 1. Planka.nu who simply says that they are not going to pay and know that the lonely conductor (on the trams) is not going to do anything. 2. Middle eastern immigrants in groups that just says fuck off! 3. Swedes that comes with strange excuses like "oh, i forgot but I am just going one station". 4. Nervous Swedes that jumps in and out of the tram depending on where the conductor is. 5. Immigrants who just shake their head when the ticket checker arrives.
I have traveled with the tram to and from work in Stockholm for almost three years now and I have so far yet to see the first fine handed out. The problem with this is that people like me who pay properly are such fucking losers. I assume that the economic reality will catch up with this sooner or later.
Sweden is full of idiots like this. The worst organization is not "planka.nu" but "allt åt alla" (everything to everyone). They think that all the tax money collected should be handed out to anyone who needs money. It is obvious that they aim to receive money and have no ambition to contribute. Basically a modern version of a cargo cult
The great Swedish welfare state is dead. We do not have a working military anymore which makes even the Estonian president to complain. The healthcare is the same. It exists but not for everyone no matter how much tax you pay. Sweden has the fewest hospital beds per 1000 people in Europe. A 27 year old Swede can look forward to 40% of the salary as a pension. A Greek 120%. The School is falling in the PISA statistics. All can be found in different OECD reports.
I am soon emigrating. I am not paying anymore.
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A 27 year old Swede can look forward to 40% of the salary as a pension. A Greek 120%.
You are aware that that is one of the main reasons that Greece was so thoroughly fucked by the financial crisis? One of the main reasons why such a large proportion of Greeks had no jobs at all for years? 40% feels low, sure, but 120% is absurdly high. (The only way 120% could work is by artificially depressing salaries across the whole population and getting the taxes in from entirely different mechanisms. You'd get 120%, but it would be 120% of much less...)
Turnstile Jumping and Broken Windows Policing (Score:3)
New York City's crackdown on turnstile jumping was part of the Giuliani Administrations implementation of broken window policing. But reducing low level disorder and misdemeanor crime, broken windows policing makes the law abiding residents of neighborhoods feel safer.
"A government’s inability to control even a minor crime [city-journal.org] like graffiti signaled to citizens that it certainly couldn’t handle more serious ones."
Stopping and arresting turnstile jumpers in particular frequently turned up wanted felons, parole violators, and gangbangers with illegal guns. Arresting them not only took criminal predators, off the streets, it encouraged other criminals to leave their guns at home for fear of having them confiscated. This further reduced their abilities to commit criminal acts in places like subways, and reduced criminal gun incidents when members of rival gangs would bump into each other.
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How? *You* have the unlimited metrocard.
There is a difference between not paying and faulty equipment.
Forget barriers - just a punative penalty fare (Score:2)
If I ran a transport network, I wouldn't bother with barriers - just occasional ticket checks / smart card validation and upon failure it's a £1,000,000 fine.
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They've been doing this for the past 13 years, a bit long to run a sting don't you think?
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I wonder how you put this on your resume.
"You were working at a jail for those years?"
"Yeah, I was the buddy of a murderer"
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I suspect the people who actually do this are mostly kids who don't have steady jobs yet. Being part of a union to dodge fees on public transit is probably viewed by many in the halls of power as a mischievous phase young'ens go through. According to the article only 3% of rides are not paid for, and most evaders seem to be High School age kids. Joining a fare-dodging union specifically designed to protest that taxes on the rich aren't high enough is IMO exactly the kind of mischief the powers-that-be in Sw
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The police has absolutely zero reason to help catching fare dodgers.
To understand why so few fare dodgers get caught it's important to understand that the police has no business being in the metro unless they suspect a crime is going on. The only people in the metro are the metro guards who are explicitly -not- police.
This is important because in Sweden only the police can legally detain you which means that when a metro guard catches you without a ticket, you can simply run out of the metro and the guard c
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And is any of this written into the Constitution? Or could a simple parliamentary majority amend the law so that police could stop people dodging fares for the next few months, and then that the transit authority could hire 20-25 guys with police powers? Hell, even if there is a Constitutional bar, why couldn't they just hire 100 more station guards for a few months,m and then station a bunch of police outside the station to nail anyone running out.
I read the article, and it seems like they're unlikely to u
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A simple parliamentary majority? Short of mind control powers you'll never get a Swedish parliament to give random uneducated bums police powers. The only non-police with police powers in Sweden are train conductors however the metro is not a train.
Meanwhile the actual police are really expensive and overworked as is due to budget issues and there are consitutional issues preventing the state from giving orders to the police.
Re:You can't have services without paying for them (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to describe with words how deeply the core principles of the Swedish state would be violated by your proposal. You are essentially proposing breaking down the entire system of government.
SL (The owner of the metro) is a private corporation that is owned by the local county. Having a private company employ police in the capacity of policemen is unthinkable, it can simply not happen, ever. It violates every principle about division of power and oversight of power.
Yes, the Chief of Police has the authority to send all his police down in the metro to catch people dodging fares if he wanted to. But what sort of perverse mind control would you use on him to make him do such a thing and how many seconds do you think he would remain chief of police if he did so? Catching people dodging fares is not part of his mandate and by ordering the policemen to do so, he'd make them unable to actually prevent crime. That sort of thing would force the oversight board to remove him on the spot.
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Sweden operates on a different legal system then the US and England does which often confuses Slashdot posters.
When a government entity wants to do something it has two options, either it makes a department for it such as the police or firemen. Alternatively it can create a corporation with a CEO where the board of directors are the elected politicians.
A corporation is legally no different from any other corporation, the only difference is that the owner is the county or the state. A number of major Swedish
Re:Hop the strass (Score:4, Insightful)
Literally meaning, I ain't got no money. You may know the concept better as, open source.
Weak troll is weak. People who write OSS are willingly giving the product of their efforts away for free. That's got nothing to do with scofflaws who deliberately steal a service that they are not paying for.
Re:Hop the strass (Score:4, Insightful)
Those services are funded by tax payer money
Those services are partially funded by tax payer money
There, I fixed that for you.