I didn't go out of my way to talk to bus drivers as a kid if my clipper-card didn't work in the machine and there was a scrum boarding, or our weekly pass thermally faded sooner than it should. Drivers were rude and surly a lot of the time so it wasn't worth the hassle of talking to them unless you had to.
I don't think I've ever intentionally fare dodged onna train, but if I can't legit buy a ticket and then there's no gate at my destination I won't go out of my way. Especially not after a ticket let me into the system but then trapped me on the Underground at Euston at the last but one part of my return journey and staff wouldn't let me out or open a kiosk so I could pay. There was confusion about whether my ticket included transfer on the underground (you couldn't transfer otherwise so
?!). After 20 mins of banging on the kiosk window (staff were there but ignoring me), getting sore legs and risking missing my train, I told the gate staff "Either make those kiosk people let me pay Right Now, let me out, or I'm climbing this gate and you can call the police cos this is kidnap over a confusing shitty ticket system and I'm out of fucks". They let me out cos they could see I'd tried. I was NOT happy at all.
UK train ticketing is overly complicated, lots of expensive pitfalls and quite frankly sometimes horrid attitude in announcements and by staff towards passengers who are now confused by said shitty systems. I think tickets should be simplified and a lot cheaper and there should be a lot more capacity. People's cars don't decide to make their journey cost 10-20x more at certain times of day (usually) and car drivers aren't stuck on cold windy dieselly platforms for hours waiting for a seat, if they're lucky.
UK trains stink and I worry the Tories are going to try and make them worse.