Ever heard of them? I hadn’t until a couple of days ago when I was googling on a story I’d heard that a Stagecoach driver driver refused to allow a blind woman with a guide dog on to his bus – as there was already a guide dog on board. The story is here. In another link I read that this was contrary to the above regulations as ammended by The Public Service Vehicles (Conduct of Drivers, Inspectors, Conductors and Passengers) (Amendment) Regulations 2002. All interesting stuff!

You may think I’m wandering off topic now but something happened today which is relevant to this. I was boarding passengers at Winchester bus station when one passenger showed me a weekly ticket. The ticket was perfectly printed in every way except the second digit of the expiry date couldn’t be read – it read like “Expiry 2* January”. This weekly ticket is enclosed in a plastic sealed wallet to protect it, but and when I ran my finger over the plastic above the second digit it suddenly felt rough. A bit like it had been pricked by a pin many times. I told the passenger I wasn’t satisfied with the ticket and would take it to the office for checking. As I stepped off the bus I collided with a Standards Controller (Inspector) getting on!! Normally a Standards Controller is the last person you want to see since they seem to be more intent on trying to catch drivers out than passengers. I showed the guy the ticket and explained my reservations about it. The Standards Controller checked like I had and then told the passenger that he was satisfied that the ticket had been tampered with and that he was confiscating the ticket. If the passenger still wanted to travel then he must purchase another ticket.

The relevance of all this is that it’s specifically covered by the Regulations under:

(5) Any passenger on a vehicle being used for the carriage of passengers at separate fares who has with him a ticket which he is not entitled to retain for any reason including-

(a) the alteration or defacement of the ticket;

shall surrender the ticket to a driver, inspector or conductor on being required to do so.

The Public Service Vehicles (Conduct of Drivers, Inspectors, Conductors and Passengers) Regulations 1990 can be read in full here.