exposing Yarra Trams propaganda lies
Read the Yarra Trams poster below.
This poster contains deliberate misinformation. It is pure propaganda and is designed to threaten people into validating tickets when they are not legally required to.
The actual offence is to travel without a valid ticket (a ticket that is current, not expired). There is no legal requirement to revalidate tickets in each segment of a journey within the time period of its validity (2 hours, daily, monthly, etc) and Yarra Trams admitted as such in 2006. See this Age article and my article of dubious validity for further information. Thanks to adrock2xander for the original story.
VALIDATION DOES NOTHING to inform Melbourne’s public transport providers about customer behaviour and the needs of public transport users because only about 30% of people validate. Yarra Trams knows this and we know they know because they told us so.
VALIDATION IS A CON. Take a stand. Always travel with a valid ticket (such as buying one from the coin machine on a tram, which is automatically validated, or buying a daily ticket at a newsagent and validating it at the start of the day) then don’t validate it again until you are legally required to.
I’ve already posted a complaint about this deceptive conduct with Yarra Trams and I plan to take it to Consumer Affairs Victoria and the Consumer Action Law Centre. Threatening consumers without legal foundation is an offence. Yarra Trams marketing material is criminal.
Posts you may find relevant and interesting
- of dubious validity, 18 November 2006
- tram conductors are economically efficient, 24 July 2008
- If it’s public transport, I’ll have what they’re having, 24 April 2008
- nice one angry fella!, 1 June 2008
- corporate extortion, 10 April 2008
