Bus Inspector

I ride the buses often here in London. I prefer buses to the tube - when I have the extra time it sometimes takes because of traffic. When I pay for the bus ride, I use the Oyster Card that I use on the Underground. As I board the bus, I place my card on a pad near the driver, and it shows a green light indicating that I have paid for the ride. Sometimes the light shows red for a person, but that person will keep on going into the bus - especially if there is a crowd getting on. I have often wondered how the bus driver is supposed to handle those 'non-payers' while at the same time driving the bus. Well yesterday, I found out how that is done.

Apparently, if the bus driver realizes that one or more of the passengers has not paid the fare - he can make a call and have a Bus Inspector come to the bus and check it out. Yesterday, two inspectors boarded a bus that I was riding and, with their hand-held card machines, tested the card of every passenger on the bus. Anyone who's card was not functioning properly was dealt with by these inspectors. I didn't hang around long enough to see what happened to the non-payers; perhaps they were evicted from the bus - or maybe even fined. But it was interesting to see how the process worked.