Fuck Tha (Muni) Police

Jhameel and I regularly talk about the, er, “uninhibited” way I live my life. That is, I don’t subscribe to conventional morality for the sake of fitting into society. Rather, I live my life and try out different things, coming to my own conclusions about what’s right and wrong.

After giving my friends shit for ripping off Muni, San Francisco’s public transit system, I read a fascinating article about how the MTA can’t really enforce the citations that they issue. I’ve been trying to figure out where I stand on this one. I do love Muni with all of its flaws (the drivers pulling hit-and-runs, allowing fights on buses, not stopping when they don’t feel like stopping). Muni allows me a relatively cheap and somewhat reliable means of transportation, and I am thankful for that.

At the same time, the system has some huge flaws that need addressing. If they can’t enforce riders to pay the fare, perhaps they should fix that. What I’m saying is, I had a much harder time cheating the system in Paris. I heard a statistic that 10% of San Francisco Muni riders don’t pay the fare! And last week, I became one of them.

It’s funny that on my first free ride, Muni fare inspectors happened to board the subway I was on and ask for proof of payment, which I, of course, did not have. This would be a surefire way for me to test out 1) how bad I felt for ripping off the system, and 2) what’ll happen if I don’t pay!

So, my ticket came in the mail. I’m not planning on paying it, and recently getting a parking ticket is probably making me even less willing to hand my hard-earned cash over to “the man.” Parking tickets, as my online media guru found out the hard way, have actual repercussions for not paying.

I’ll keep you updated on what happens, but want to leave you with this: Regardless of if it’s morally right or wrong to not pay, getting a ticket was enough of a wake-up call for me to decide to pay the $2 fare. Simply for the reason that the service of Muni is worth it to me (especially trying to get back to my place at 3 in the morning when I’m not, er, in a good state to be driving). Plus, the anxiety of wondering if I’d get caught kind of made the trip too stressful for me, even knowing that a ticket wouldn’t really cost me.