Irish Rail Fine - Student Travel Card

youyesyou

Basically,

I used my student travel card to purchase two student tickets recently. I received a bill for 172euro 2months later on account of having done this:

2 Laws quoted

2005 Railway Act; offence to attempt to travel on railway without paying fare and intenting to avoid the fare.

2001 Criminal Justice Act; section 7; offence to obtain services by deception, refraining from doing an act with intent of making gain for myself and of causing loss to another.

I was told in the letter that I could appeal if I had a reasonable explanation;

I appealed as follows:

***

To whom it may concern,

I write having received a request for payment of 172euro owing to using the same student card to pay for two train tickets on April Xth. (ref: XXXX)

I write to appeal the imposition of this penalty owing to my having a reasonable explanation of which it is my intention to elaborate upon presently:

On the date in question I travelled with x colleagues (all students) from Dublin Heuston to Tralee. The weekend being Easter weekend train and transport services were quite busy, we arrived at the station in a less timely fashion than we had anticipated. After queueing at the kiosk to buy our train tickets it became clear that one of the group could not find their student travel card. With the departure of the train imminent I offered them the use of mine so as that they wouldn't have to miss the train in attempting to locate their own. They used my travel-card number to success and the ticket was purchased. Incidentally we did not in fact catch the train we had intended to board.

While my friend X proves currently uncontactable should you have the resources to, you will find a Sir / Madam X, attending X College, Dublin, originally from Co. X, as being in possession of a valid student travel card. They will corroborate the circumstances in which their ticket was purchased with those that I have hereinbefore outlined.

I would therefore request that the imposition of any penalty be annulled on account of my production of this objectively reasonable explanation.

Thanking you kindly & wishing you a nice day.

Yours sincerely;

****

Having heard nothing for two weeks I rang today to find out my appeal was just opened. & they dealt with me on the phone then.
I spoke to two people, the first said he'd get on to his supervisor and see what he could do.
the supervisor rang me back and is having none of it; basically he says:

***

he has no way of verifying if that person had a travel card or not.

that it is a condition of my travel card that it's for my own use.

***

where do I stand,

as an aside, which i mentioned on the phone, I was under 18 on the date I purchased the tickets and when I signed for my student travel card.

I amn't exactly certain, I know it's a complicated area, but doesn't this mean that I can't be held to the terms of these contracts, as a general principle.

Of the two pieces of legislation they quoted, the first is obviously unapplicable, and the supervisor maintained the second was, but I would think it clear that I did not have the intention of making gain for myself AND causing loss to another. Even if the legislation said OR as opposed to 'and' I still maintain i did not intend to cause loss to another by letting someone entitled to a student fare purchase one.

Supervisor basically says he'll see me in court and I can explain this to a judge.

Obviously the last place I want to be is in court.

What to do?

Thanks in advance.

AlekSmart

youyesyou wrote: »

Basically......




.....On the date in question I travelled with x colleagues (all students) from Dublin Heuston to Tralee. The weekend being Easter weekend train and transport services were quite busy, we arrived at the station in a less timely fashion than we had anticipated. After queueing at the kiosk to buy our train tickets it became clear that one of the group could not find their student travel card. With the departure of the train imminent I offered them the use of mine so as that they wouldn't have to miss the train in attempting to locate their own. They used my travel-card number to success and the ticket was purchased. Incidentally we did not in fact catch the train we had intended to board.

While my friend X proves currently uncontactable should you have the resources to, you will find a Sir / Madam X, attending X College, Dublin, originally from Co. X, as being in possession of a valid student travel card. They will corroborate the circumstances in which their ticket was purchased with those that I have hereinbefore outlined.

I would therefore request that the imposition of any penalty be annulled on account of my production of this objectively reasonable explanation.

Thanking you kindly & wishing you a nice day.

Yours sincerely;

****

Having heard nothing for two weeks I rang today to find out my appeal was just opened. & they dealt with me on the phone then.
I spoke to two people, the first said he'd get on to his supervisor and see what he could do.
the supervisor rang me back and is having none of it; basically he says:

***

He has no way of verifying if that person had a travel card or not.

That it is a condition of my travel card that it's for my own use.

***

Where do I stand ?

As an aside, which i mentioned on the phone, I was under 18 on the date I purchased the tickets and when I signed for my student travel card.

I amn't exactly certain, I know it's a complicated area, but doesn't this mean that I can't be held to the terms of these contracts, as a general principle.

Of the two pieces of legislation they quoted, the first is obviously unapplicable, and the supervisor maintained the second was, but I would think it clear that I did not have the intention of making gain for myself AND causing loss to another. Even if the legislation said OR as opposed to 'and' I still maintain i did not intend to cause loss to another by letting someone entitled to a student fare purchase one.

Supervisor basically says he'll see me in court and I can explain this to a judge.

Obviously the last place I want to be is in court.

What to do?

Thanks in advance.

Advice ?...Ok,based on this post,my advice is GET YOURSELF SOME LEGAL ADVICE,which as you are a Student,may be forthcoming from the USI perhaps.

As for my 2c worth,well the two points which the Official raised are fairly watertight in a Judgey kinda way,and whilst you may indeed now retrospectively claim some form of status as a minor,I would not like to lay bets on any Judge accepting that you were not actually being a Smart Alek in his/her court ?

Secondly,I would immediately write back to IE,seeking written confirmation of this Phone Conversation,as I suspect that this was not quite having the matter "dealt with" in legal terms....?

The choices are yours and good luck with whatever you decide.

(Mind you,it is a good point to remind ourselves of an entire new band of Student Brothers now preparing to get involved in the Student Travel fandango in September )

schemingbohemia

Where does it state that having a student card entitles you to buy a second reduced fare student ticket for another person using that ID?

That's the only question that the judge will ask and you have no valid response to this as there is none.

Your attempted reliance on being a minor at the time of the "offence" is rather pathetic - I presume you obeyed all other rules/laws pertaining to age related matters at the time such as not purchasing alcohol seeing films with an 18 cert etc?:rolleyes:

davetherave

You might think it to be a reasonable explanation, but you still violated the terms and conditions of your STC.
The reason that you have to type your STC number into the ticket vending machine is so that it becomes linked to your STC which has your photo on it, showing you are eligable for the discounted travel. Not your mate standing beside you who may or may not be.

Pay the fine, or explain it to a judge.
Would you go up to a doorman at a nightclub with the same friends and show your passport or drivers license twice instead of having your mate rooting around in his pockets and holding up the queue?

goingnowhere

I worry for the future of this country when people can't follow the simplest of rules

It's your student travel card for your personal use the tickets are not transferable and you must have a ticket which either has a matching ID number or name

Any other use such as sharing with friends is fraud and voids the card. Traveling on a discounted/concession ticket without meeting the terms and conditions is intent to defraud and Irish Rail are right to throw the book at you

You were in the wrong OP.

If you tried to get on a plane to another country with a friend's passport, when stopped, would you really say "oh but I do have a passport, it's just at home so I'm using someone else's"?

Best case scenario for you now is that your friend might foot half the bill for you. Otherwise pay up before you cause more trouble for yourself.

youyesyou

so it's of no relevance at all that my friend had her student travel card on her person for the entire duration journey after the initial purchase of the ticket, and that ticket presented with her own travelcard, was validated by no less than 3 ticket-checkers?

AlekSmart

youyesyou wrote: »

So,it's of no relevance at all that my friend had her student travel card on her person for the entire duration journey after the initial purchase of the ticket, and that ticket presented with her own travelcard, was validated by no less than 3 ticket-checkers?

No I would not see it as of relevance at all in this particular case,except perhaps to highlight some rather glaring deficiencies in IE's manual ticket-checking procedures.

Luckily,the infraction was picked up by the automated system,which is responsible for your little pickle.

I'm not really certain as to what responses you require on this board,as your situation is now highly personal to YOU.

What is your chosen field of study ?

TheReverend

You broke the rules, simple as, it sucks, just get your friend to help you pay the fine

Victor

Your best option may to ask for leniency.

The Railway Safety Act does apply as it sets the fine level.

Hilly Bill

Ye ask for leniency based on the fact that you are a student and unable to understand the rules regarding the use of your student card.

Is there any chance that the rules regarding the use of the student card be posted as a sticky at the top of the page to stop these "poor misfortunate student " threads popping up once a week and maybe post links to the other threads in there.?

end of the road

i think what needs to happen is instead of IE issuing fines and court summonses to people who break the rules in relation to the student card they just revoke the travel card first time a person is caught. all though maybe the fines and taking people to court (even though it costs) might actually bring in more revenue for IE in the end?

foggy_lad

youyesyou wrote: »

so it's of no relevance at all that my friend had her student travel card on her person for the entire duration journey after the initial purchase of the ticket, and that ticket presented with her own travelcard, was validated by no less than 3 ticket-checkers?

I'm no fan of Irish rails revenue protection policies but for this one I have to say well done.

Your friend had her travelcard but still you bought two tickets with your card when you must have known or at least suspected this was not allowed? I don't believe this at all, sounds too far fetched. Why would your friend not use their own travelcard number??