Best Policy
Ever paid for one newspaper from a vending machine or 12 ears of corn from an unmanned cart by the side of the road and been tempted to take more than you paid for?
Managers of operations that work on the honor system — like 50 cents for a single weekday newspaper or $5 for a dozen ears of corn — say there's still honesty in the honor system.
If customers are tempted to cheat a little or a lot, for the most part they don't act on it.
There's no more visible example of the honor system during the harvest season than the self-serve corn stands along the side of the road.Dave Jones of Sarver owns and operates 48 stands with his signature red and white awnings. He's been raising sweet corn for 20 years and selling it from the carts for the last five."I'm a farmer and I love to raise crops and animals," Jones said.He designed the roadside stands himself and a friend built them, though Jones had to modify the trailers as necessary. The setup now sports contractor-grade locks on quarter-inch-thick steel lock boxes."I would say that 99 percent of people are honest, but you have to help keep people honest," he said."If you have a thief, they'll just keep doing it if they think they can get away with it."Jones added the new locks after a Good Samaritan told him about these particular safety devices, explaining he had seen someone at one of the stands cut the lock off the cash box.Jones also has had to modify the lock boxes themselves, adding a slanted piece of metal inside under the opening because people were fishing money out of the box."Last year people were about 90 percent honest. This year it's about 99 percent," he said.He attributes the better rate, even as the economy lags, to the installation of video surveillance cameras this season."I appreciate people's honesty," Jones said. "I appreciate even through the bad economy, people are honest, even when they don't have to be."
During the fall and spring, the honor system is in play at the driving range at Strawberry Ridge Golf Course in Zelienople.Golfers can insert $5 in a machine to get a bucket of 60 to 70 golf balls to use on the driving range there."I've seen guys putting a few of the golf balls in their pockets, but not a lot," said manager Andy Gaff.He said he sees maybe a few more customers not being honest these days.He used the example of a recent school holiday when some teenagers came to play golf at the 18-hole course. Gaff said some of the teens said they were going to ride a golf cart and paid the fee, but one young man said he was going to walk.When Gaff checked on them mid-course, he said that same young man was not just riding in the cart but driving it. "So when they came back in when they were done, I asked him to pay for riding, and then I asked them not to come back."We treat our customers honestly and we hope that our customers are the same way," Gaff concluded.
The Green Bike Initiative at Slippery Rock University has been operating for years on the honor system. Students can use one of the green "fleet bikes," as they're called, whenever they see one on campus.The program initially allowed students to take the bikes off campus as well, but a problem developed."If you rode one to Giant Eagle, there was the possibility that when you came out it would be gone because someone else had used it then," said Steve Roberts, coordinator of SRU's Outdoor Adventures and Club Sports."So we've kind of changed our focus," Roberts said. "Our main goal was to reduce our carbon footprint, so we've shifted a little bit. Now students can sign out a bike for the entire semester or for a few days at a time. We want them to actually change their lifestyle."There are still green fleet bicycles for riding on campus, but in addition, any donated bicycles are fixed up and given free to students who will use them."We want them to sign a form that says they will take care of them, and if they need them when they leave here, they can take them with them," he said.It all works on their honor.
