zerosleeps

Another unnecessarily confusing sign on one of Melbourne’s trams. The awkward placement of the comma makes this read like you don’t need to touch off in order to touch on. In my internal voice it sounds like “Hey remember! To touch on you don’t need to touch off.”

What it’s trying to say is that you must always touch on, but you don’t need to touch off. It could be rewritten in any number of ways to make that much clearer. Split up the two actions:

“Remember to touch on. You don’t need to touch off.”

Or swap it around:

“Remember, you don’t need to touch off, but you do need to touch on.”

Or something a bit more conversational:

“Remember to touch on, but you don’t need to touch off.”

Maybe it’s not just the comma - it’s the use of the word “remember” as well. What about this which forgoes friendliness for clarity:

“Always touch on. You don’t need to touch off.”

I dunno. I still maintain that all of this would go away if myki was fixed so that the instruction simply becomes “Always touch on. Always touch off”. Maybe we’ll get an overhaul when the new Metro Tunnel stations are added…?