In politics, there are no free rides.

Adrian Dix, the leader of the British Columbia NDP must feel as though he was born under a lucky political star, the tempest that could have been an obsession with his recent confession of fare evasion on the Vancouver Skytrain system seemed to dissipate quite quickly, thanks mainly to the growing drama enveloping his main competitor Premier Christy Clark.

Dix, made the news cycle last weekend after it was revealed that he had been issued a warning ticket over the issue of not having proof of purchase for transportation services on the Greater Vancouver transit system.

Just another, all be it high profile, fare evader (to be fair Mr. Dix did say that he believes he misplaced his SkyTrain ticket), as things turned out however, it was an issue that actually proved in the end to be more embarrassing to the government, than the NDP leader.

The word of Dix's fare evasion problems, proved to be but a minor detail in the larger issue of uncollected revenues from actually issued tickets.  A rather startling figure of some 7 million dollars per year in revenue not pursued by the Provincial government, dating back more than a few years, now that's a lot of valuable revenue the government seemingly let drop through the seat cushions.

While we remained focused on the incredible nature of the left hand of government, not knowing what the right hand is doing, Mr. Dix perhaps sighed a breath of relief, thankful that his very public embarrassment didn't percolate in the news machine for long.

However, not to let him off the hook completely, Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer offered up some helpful advice for the NDP leader, some talking points he may wish to consider should he wish to avoid any further faux pas in the months to come.

CTV-- Adrian Dix caught on SkyTrain without ticket
CBC-- B. C. NDP leader Dix caught without transit ticket
Canada.com-- Last train to Dix-ville
Surrey Now-- The Dix double-standard
Vancouver Province-- No one should get a transit fare warning