Riding on Greek buses

With all the scary stuff about viruses I very much doubt that you guys will be out there, hurrying to catch a ride on a Greek bus in Athens. In a way it's a pity, as buses are one of the last great bargains, with rides costing as little as 90 eurocents for ninety minutes of bus/metro/tram hopping in the greater Athens area, allowing the user extraordinary freedom in getting arounf.

Alas this doesn't seem enough for many Athens residents, particularly the young, who choose to trade without validating their tickets. While it may be an exaggeration, or even a statistical aberration of when I happen to observe, but eight out of ten bus passengers appear not to either have tickets or to properly endorse them according to the rules, with the young being the chief miscreants. It seems that a large number of people think that they just don't need to pay for using public transport in Greece.

Does it matter? Is it a problem? Oh yes, it is a growing, painful problem, as the bus company just cannot afford to pay for spares for its buses and being forced to cannibalise older vehicles for spares to keep the fleet moving a much as is possible. This is a serious, massive problem, neither acknowledged nor discussed presently, as it is leading to an impending collapse of public transport in its present form. Yet we persist in this reckless abuse - only this evening I witnessed fewer than half the people boarding a bus validating a ticket or travel pass.

Why is this? Well, one of the reasons is that these days there are very few controls on public transport, with the few existing being on the underground railway - I have not seen a ticket inspector on a bus in years - so the people feel that there is a free for all. What is even more worrying is that the people doing this, whether they are greek citizens or immigrants, do not feel that they are doing anything wrong as so many of their fellow users are doing the same.

Yet what they are doing is not only wrong, it is outright theft! They are defrauding the Greek state of the small fare that it has determined should be charged, a cost far below most other European capitals, and are doing so cheerfully and without any scruples. It doesn't matter if they are using the buses for one stop or many; if they cannot afford the fare they should walk instead of the current underhand practice.

Some people I have heard blame the immigrants, but in my experience that is generally not the case, though some are copying indigenous behaviour and benefiting illegally. More often than not we Greeks are our own worst enemies, cheating ourselves to feel clever. Bliah!

We need to grow up! We need to understand that this is not a victimless crime, that the thousands of law-abiding, ticket-paying citizens are not fools subsidising our immature, illicit behaviour. We need to learn that inline you need to pay your way, properly and fairly, in order to live in a decent society.

And in order to reinforce it we need to reintroduce regular, strict checks, however unpopular they may be in the short term, so that the burden is shared by all users, with those who cannot conform being forced to walk. It may even help with the obesity crisis...