Busted on the Bus

Marge follows the rules

Local buses in Bologna are clean, plentiful, and run frequently. We love using them! An individual ticket is 1.5 euros for an hour's travel on any number of buses in any direction. So if you're just making a quick round trip or touring the entire ciry using several buses, you just need one ticket per hour. Bus drivers only drive. They don't sell or check the tickets. There are machines in each bus to sell tickets and to time stamp/validate the tickets. You must validate your ticket or you can be fined.
Marge and I each bought a "ten ride pass" and obeyed the rules for the first several days. But we observed many, at times even most, passengers not purchasing or validating tickets. "What gives?" So this morning, near the end of our 10 trip pass, we purposely failed to validate our tickets. Half way through the ride, the "Ticket Checkers" boarded the buys to audit everyone's tickets. I watched as several passengers were given violation tickets and fined. When asked, we handed our passes to be examined. They clearly had been validated with time stamps from other rides but not this ride and not within the past hour. We were busted!! Thankfully the "Ticket Checker" just smilled and handed back the tickets without a word.
I'm sorry to have let my country down and won't do it again.