# Pregnant, forced to sit on a train floor – then unjustly fined for fare dodging | Consumer affairs | The Guardian

## Pregnant, forced to sit on a train floor – then unjustly fined for fare dodging

### Daisy Mumba

**10 Mar 2025 11.11**

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### Guardian Pick

This has got to be one of the most absurd examples of pointless bureaucracy I've seen in a while.



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### Guardian Pick

That's one of the more dismal aspects of this story, that the fact that she couldn't physically get to the seat she had actually booked and at 7 months pregnant had to sit on the floor is just a feature of her journey almost unworthy of note.



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### Guardian Pick

Yet another example of our Kafka-esque labyrinthine train ticketing system. Why shouldn't e-tickets be standard for all journeys from every provider? Beggars belief that this even reached court.



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### Guardian Pick

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### Guardian Pick

This has got to be one of the most absurd examples of pointless bureaucracy I've seen in a while.



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### Guardian Pick

I do hope that the next time John Major is lauded as being a great statesman, as happens fairly often in this media outlet, that mention is also made that he is the person responsible for the mess that are the railways in Britain.



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### Guardian Pick

This is, sadly, typical of today's "everything's on the Internet" society, where automata tell you "you need to...". The petty tyrants, whose algorithmic rules, orders and penalties have replaced human interactions, are progressively dehumanising and destroying the value of each of us and of everything we do - all in the cause of "greater efficiency" and, of course, reduced job count. This so that, first, the top execs can live like princes and then to maintain share value. But in this headlong rush we are all diminished, mere cogs in the machine, controlled at every step, unable to effectively protest, guilty unless by superhuman endeavour we are able to prove that a narrow-minded "system" got it wrong and, even then, as with Mumba in the article, blamed for what they have cynically imposed upon us.

Please stop this world - some of us would like to get off.



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### Guardian Pick

Have you ever been pregnant? Thought not.



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### Guardian Pick

Not a shred of compassion or understanding was shown to this woman. Beginning with other passengers who stayed seated while a pregnant woman sat on the floor (!!!) and the ticket collector who made no effort to find a seat for her and applied no judgment or consideration to her very reasonable explanation. That ticket collector will object when her position becomes automated, but what humanity did she bring to the job that day?



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### Guardian Pick

Of course easyjet are watching this with interest. 'Yes you can use an eticket. Unless the date x the time is a prime number, in which case you have to print it. Didn't you read the t&cs?'



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### Guardian Pick

Kindly attempt at a solution.



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### Guardian Pick

7.5 hours? Was it going slowly because it was overcrowded?



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