Off the Rails and Back On Again.

On Wednesday of last week, I decided to take full advantage of the fact that it was one of the last child-free days before half-term and went on the train to the Big City to do some serious bookshop-browsing.
Whilst waiting for my train, I was approached by an official-looking gentleman with a clip-board, who asked me would I be prepared to take part on a survey to acertain customer satisfaction with services at our local train station.

I was happy to do this, and promised to complete the survey form and return it in due course.
It did provide me with considerable entertainment for the 20 minute journey. Most of the questions were intelligent and relevant, but one in particular rendered me speechless.

Question 54 dealt with security on the railway, and asked what six areas should the British Transport Police focus their resoucres on for 2007.
The options were :-

Theft with violence or threat of violence
Theft without violence or threat of violence
Violent assaults on passengers (including sexual assaults)
Assaults on rail staff
Vandals damaging tracks and throwing missiles etc
Hate crime (crime motivated by race, gender, sexuality etc)
Threat of terrorism
Managing fatalities (through thorough investigation and prompt re-opening of the line)
Theft or vandalism of station-parked vehicles etc
Graffiti
Preventing football hooligans travelling on the rail system
Addressing anti-social behaviour eg ticket touts, drunkeneness etc.

Some random thoughts that cross my mind are :-

For heaven`s sake, why not just include theft or attempted theft, regardless of actual or threatened violence. Theft without violence is not a significantly more acceptable option than theft with violence, at least not in my book.

Having had the misfortune to travel on trains when drunken sports fans are travelling home, I can assure you it is not pleasant, especially when you have young children with you. These folk tend to be aggressive, foul-mouthed, screaming abuse at passengers and each other, with threats of violence directed at anyone who even catches their eye in some cases. Why they are even allowed on the train when many of them are roaring drunk to start with, defeats me.

How on earth could you be more worried about graffiti than threats of terrorism ?

I think whoever designed that section of the questionnaire needs to wake up to life in the real world :-0

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