Should kids go free?

No! Kids should learn at a very early age to contribute and give of
themselves we live in a take and thankless world and I think ,Ken
livingstone (The Mayor) has made a BIG MISTAKE that will haunt him or
his childrens, children in years to come, I beleive that anybody over
the age of 50 should travel free because they are more likely to have
made a contribution to society than some snotty 15 year old kid.

On Jun 19, 12:26 am, ricardo <rjackson...@> wrote:
> No! Kids should learn at a very early age to contribute and give of
> themselves we live in a take and thankless world and I think ,Ken
> livingstone (The Mayor) has made a BIG MISTAKE that will haunt him or
> his childrens, children in years to come, I beleive that anybody over
> the age of 50 should travel free because they are more likely to have
> made a contribution to society than some snotty 15 year old kid.

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On 19 Jun, 00:26, ricardo <rjackson...@> wrote:
> No! Kids should learn at a very early age to contribute and give of
> themselves we live in a take and thankless world and I think ,Ken
> livingstone (The Mayor) has made a BIG MISTAKE that will haunt him or
> his childrens, children in years to come, I beleive that anybody over
> the age of 50 should travel free because they are more likely to have
> made a contribution to society than some snotty 15 year old kid.

I suspect part of the thinking behind it was that on the buses when
the school kids all pile in its virtually impossible for the driver to
know who's paid or who hasn't so make the drivers life easier and just
let them on. Though I suspect this will lead to more problems than it
solves.

B2003

> No! Kids should learn at a very early age to contribute and give of
> themselves we live in a take and thankless world and I think ,Ken
> livingstone (The Mayor) has made a BIG MISTAKE that will haunt him or
> his childrens, children in years to come, I beleive that anybody over
> the age of 50 should travel free because they are more likely to have
> made a contribution to society than some snotty 15 year old kid.

I was under the impression, perhaps the wrong impression, that the idea was
to encourage children to make more use of public transport with the hope
they will carry on using it as adults. If they already needed to use public
transport for their school journeys then it seems to me that making it free
isn't really doing all that much to further this aim. Free bus journeys in
the evenings and weekends and outside peak periods in holiday times would be
more appropriate. I also believe that kids need to learn to contribute and
paying for their bus fares to and from school would be an excellent example.

In my experience providing children with free bus journeys has made travel
on some bus routes miserable for other passengers at the ends of the school
day. It encourages children to bundle onto buses via rear doors instead of
queuing at the front door with others and it has also encouraged them to use
the bus for journeys of just one stop which they would be unlikely to do if
paying.

Dave wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:31:59 GMT, Mojo
> <mojo29@*pleaseremove*> wrote:
>
>> ricardo wrote:
>>> No! Kids should learn at a very early age to contribute and give of
>>> themselves we live in a take and thankless world and I think ,Ken
>>> livingstone (The Mayor) has made a BIG MISTAKE that will haunt him or
>>> his childrens, children in years to come, I beleive that anybody over
>>> the age of 50 should travel free because they are more likely to have
>>> made a contribution to society than some snotty 15 year old kid.
>> Yes, all full-time students should be entitled to free travel as:
>> a) they *have* to go out to school, college, etc.
>> b) Uni students are already racking up huge debts
>> c) Students generally have less money than OAPs
>
>
> But they can still afford to buy the latest mobile phone and mp3
> players!

Not all of them. But I think a better idea would be to offer
means-tested free public transport. There's no reason that rich OAPs
should get it free either.
--
Michael Hoffman

Colum Mylod wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:21 +0100 (BST), rosenstiel@cix.co.uk (Colin
> Rosenstiel) wrote:
>
>> In article <f5ekad$4e$2@gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk>, cam.ac.uk@mh391.invalid
>> (Michael Hoffman) wrote:
>>
>>> There's no reason that rich OAPs should get it free either.
>> Actually there is a reason. Filling otherwise empty seats on off-peak
>> buses is far cheaper than handing out proper pensions to everyone.
>
> And the cost of means-testing can exceed a blanket system. The really
> better off self opt out and use the Rolls.

Yes, but you can get it for free by, say, giving free/reduced travel to
people already on some other kind of benefit.
--
Michael Hoffman