Transit police are reminding SkyTrain riders to avoid the urge to ride on the outside of trains, after a man celebrating his birthday was caught and fined for doing just that.
Police say the man was riding on the outside of the SkyTrain on the coupler head, or part of the mechanism that connects train cars. They received the report just after midnight Friday night from a SkyTrain attendant as the train pulled into Royal Oak station in Burnaby.
The man then jumped onto the platform and boarded the next train, heading eastbound. Transit police officers followed the train to 22nd Street station where they intercepted and detained the man.
The Chilliwack resident said he was celebrating his 20th birthday; police say the man was “slightly intoxicated.”
He was issued a $115 ticket for riding on the outside of the train, as well as another notice for not paying his fare, costing him an additional $173. Police took the time to warn the man of the “extreme danger” of his actions before sending him on his way.
“This was an incredibly stupid thing to do,” Anne Drennan of Vancouver Transit Police said. “Anything could have knocked him off there. He could have slipped off and almost certainly would have fallen under the train, and the train would have run over him.”
Police say the incident follows a similar set of circumstances in the early hours of Dec. 4, when two preteen boys were caught riding on the outside of the train but were not fined due to their age.
With files from the Canadian Press
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