Penalty fare deadline on DLR

Jokubi

If get fined in DLR, how do they manage the time frames between each penalty increasing???

Date for penalty fare notice: 1st of december
25 pounds owed: from 1st to 22th of december (21 days)
50 pounds owed: from 23th of december to 12th of january (another 21 days or just 14)
prosecution in court: from 13th of january on

Am I right?

yorkie2

A Penalty Fare is not a fine, only a Court can issue a fine - do not let it get that far! If you are prosecuted under the 1889 Regulation of Railways Act for intending to travel without a valid ticket, then this not only can result in a fine but it is a recordable offence. If you do not pay the Penalty Fare then a prosecution has a good chance of success (providing the PF was issued correctly).

See: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14436.aspx
"The penalty fare is £50. This will be reduced to £25 if you pay within 21 days."

If the PF is not paid within 21 days they "may take further action"; I am unsure exactly on the deadlines beyond that point but you'd have to be mad to let that pass, unless you are appealing. Even if you are appealing, then unless you have really good grounds to appeal you are best off paying the £25 now and if the appeal is successful they will refund you.

This isn't the best forum to ask (I'd recommend the dedicated fares section on Railforums.co.uk) but if you are wondering what good grounds for appeal are, I could probably tell you if you have a good case if you tell me the circumstances of your case.

Note that a Penalty Fare is a fare charged to honest customers who make an honest mistake (some honest mistakes are only chargeable by an excess fare - though I can't see that applying on the DLR!) and are not a fine and should not be seen as any sort of punishment. If an RPI who is trained to collect Penalty Fares has reasonable grounds to suspect deliberate fare evasion they should not issue a Penalty Fare and submit an MG11 report for the Prosecution department to take forward.

forgotmyname

" IF " you get fined? Are you planning on doing a lot of fare evasion?

Stigy

Interesting. I replied on the CAG Forum advising that 21-days would more than likely be the deadline for full payment, but the info Yoprkie quotes seems to be different. So now you need to pay £50 apparently. You really dont want it to go to court, therefore I suggest you pay up.