The Blame Game

You've probably heard or read the news that bus and taxi fare cheats could end up in jail.

They were already debating this new rule in this morning's Morning Express. As a listener pointed out, whenever the ez-link reader makes a mistake, they'll say it's a technical fault and just offer a refund. Case closed. But now if the commuter forgets to tap the reader, he could end up in jail for fare cheating. How fair is that?

By the way, a professor in a Human Factors Engineering course I attended some years back said that there's no such thing as a human error. What he meant was that whenever something wrong happened that can be attributed to man's fault, it is because the system did not take into consideration the fact that the human could make a mistake. To err is human, after all.

Therefore, it's not our fault if we forget to tap the reader. It's the system of having to tap cards upon exiting that's flawed. Don't lay the blame on commuters. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that even if someone chooses to cheat, it's again the system for being not smart enough to prevent it. I'm not saying it's ok to cheat, but they should do something about their system instead of just relying on the law to circumvent the problem.

As for cheating cabbies by non-payment, it is of couse right to penalize the offenders. And while we're at it, why don't we charge cabbies who deliberately don't pick up passengers but wait for booking calls with malingering?