Presto Validation. Doin' it right?

It's nice to see GO transit and safety officers taking into account that as PRESTO customers, our trips are recorded and there will be days where we do forget to tap on and there will be more of these days come this summer when these instances happen due to the end of punch-style tickets.

Forgiveness should be given to those who are LOYAL and tap and tap and tap! We've all forgotten at least once. Just don't make a habit of it.

from: "Matthew"
to: "cj@thiscrazytrain.com" 
date: Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:05 PM 
subject: Presto Chronicles?

Was on the 5:15 Union-Georgetown last night.  After Bloor, the GOStapo entered my coach, which was the 2^nd coach from the locomotive, to conduct a fare inspection.  I was seated in the mid-level seats, in the quads farthest from the door between coaches.  I pulled out my Presto card, figuring I was in for an inspection within seconds.  I would end up holding my card in my hand for 25 minutes until 20 seconds before I got off the train at Bramalea, waiting.  I shall explain.

The smaller GOStapo entered and kept walking to the upper level seats.  The freakishly tall, heavy, mean-looking SOB (Imma guess he was about 6’6”, 270lbs) who entered the coach behind him, stayed to inspect our tickets.  This guy could have asked us to hand over our wallets and succeeded with every passenger, he was that big.  But I digress.  He turned to his right (my side of the train) and checked fares for the 4 people there.  No problem.  Turned left, and checked.  3 of 4 were good.  4^th guy was a young lad who claims he forgot to tap his card at Union.  Very creative, right?  Further implicating him is that he claimed to have no ID.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I keep my Presto card in my wallet, with my ID.  But not this guy.  He had nothing.  Driver’s License?  Nope.  Health Card?  No sir.  Student ID?  Nada.  Nothing with his name on it.

So, mean-looking GOStapo guy tells him “Ok...I’ll tell you what I tell everyone else.  We can do this verbally, but if it turns out that you have anything on file with GO Transit, it becomes a criminal charge.”  I’m thinking...the hell?  Criminal charge?  He must be bullshitting.  The kid proceeds to give GOStapo his name, DOB, and address (I say “kid” because his DOB that he said out loud put him at 19 yrs old).  GOStapo phones it in.  After about 10 minutes, he gets a call back from his investigative team who tells him the kid really doesn’t have a record (but they were somehow able to confirm he had a driver’s license?).  They apparently can also check the Presto usage!  He told the guy “Okay, so you don’t have any history on file with GO.  They were able to tell me that, so that’s good.  Also, I can see that you’ve been using your Presto card pretty regularly for several months, so I’m inclined to believe you that this is an isolated incident of forgetting to tap your card.  I’m going to be a nice guy, and give you the benefit of the doubt, and give you a written warning.”

Normally, I’m all “throw the book at ‘em!”...but this day, I have to say, I believed the kid too.  And furthermore, if they can check presto usage, and can see religious tap-on-tap-off activity, and then one day there’s no “tap-on” and you simply forgot, I’d like to think there’s a fighting chance that honest fare-payers like ourselves who might just forget due to being distracted or exhausted, could maybe get a warning too.