We thought that when it comes to the enforcement of the rules, WMATA had been crowned the long-reigning king of the Learning the Rules the Hard Way approach … whether it be handcuffing a 12-year-old girl for eating a french fry at the Tenleytown station, arresting an irritable pregnant woman for talking too loud on her cell phone or detaining a civil servant for eating a candy bar as she was entering the Metro Center station. While the approach — now since tempered by WMATA’s introduction of “verbal judo” — may seem extreme, some transit purists applaud the tough approach. Such actions garner big headlines and reinforce the notion that transit is a civil environment to be ridden, not trashed and disrespected.

Well, the Virginia Rail Express (pictured at left in a VRE photo) has picked up where WMATA left off. According to the Post, a regular rider who forgot to validate her ticket before boarding the train got busted. Julie Jozwiak’s ride was normal …

… until minutes later, when she was accused of trying to duck the fare because she failed to validate her ticket — garnering her a $150 citation from the conductor and a court appearance Friday that could run her an additional $66.

Ouch.

So remember VRE riders, validate your ticket before riding. (By the way, have any DCist readers ride/or have ridden VRE into the suburbs? We hear it runs a pretty efficient, normally pleasant operation.)

>> DCist’s rules for metrorail.