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Usually, it’s New York City that complains bitterly about its diplomat parking ticket situation. The U.N. may be a beacon of hope and peaceful negotiation around the world, but it brings with it workers who use their immunity to park in front of fire hydrants, red zones, and anywhere else they please – it’s the stuff of urban legends and West Wing episodes.
Washington, D.C. is getting in on this complaining game. According to a new article on WTOP.com. D.C. takes the #2 spot with a diplomat ticket total of more than $500,000. New York City is owed a grand total of $17.2 million.
In 2003, the state department issued dire warnings to embassies in New York and D.C. threatening to withhold foreign assistance if parking tickets were not paid. So far though, it seems no foreign assistance has been withheld.
Here’s D.C.’s top offenders:
Russia – $27,200
Yemen – $24,600
Cameroon – $19,520
France – $19,520
Mauritania – $8,070
The Holy See, it’s worth noting, has only one outstanding ticket for $25.
In New York, the list of top offenders is a different set:
Egypt – $1,929,142
Kuwait – $1,266,901
Nigeria – $1,019,998
Indonesia – $692,200
Brazil – $608,733
So what do these countries have in common? Oil wealth? Moxie? In 2006, Forbes Magazine hypothesized that it was the level of a country’s corruption (according to the Corruption Perception Index) that predicted the level of parking ticket delinquency, along with a country’s level of anti-American sentiment.
Any other theories?
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Here’s another solution. Citizens start carrying around either an icepick or a pair of pliers and whenever they see a DPL plated vehicle arrogantly parked next to a fire hydrant they either puncture a sidewall or rip out a valve stem. Mr. Scofflaw Bigshot will suddenly find his royal schedule seriously disrupted while his toadies run around trying to change the tire (on second thought, puncture _two_ of them) or arrange alternate transportation for His Highness.
Welcome to America and to what we call “Street Justice”.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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We may not be able to get them to pay parking tickets, but we can slash their tires. That would at least pump a small amount of cash into the economy.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Shameful. In the grand scale of things the amounts are negligible, but you just expect more from people representing their nations.
Which embassies are actually paying their fines?
The countries not paying should be publicly shamed, maybe some bad publicity will put some pressure on them.
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How about, which embassies don’t break the parking laws at all? Anybody could get a ticket once in a while by accident (not putting enough coins in the meter), but only a deliberate policy of breaking the law earns you two million dollars in parking fines.
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Some embassies actually pay their fines – though out of principle not to the issueing authority but to a police charity or some such.
A bit off topic, but I remember a story about 20 years ago in NYC in which the city government came up with a way to combat illegal diplomatic parking by towing the offending vehicle from its illegal parking spot to a legal one – but the legal spot may be miles away, in a place that would not necessarily be in the diplomats’ social orbit – like say, south Bronx. Whether or not the city actually went through with the plan, I don’t know.
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Interesting paper, it does mention some actions that can be taken – removal of diplomatic plates?
and I’m sure that you had read this- I note that the Authors cite a couple of Levitt papers as well!
Actually, why not just move the United Nations to some country in Africa? These diplomats must be spending hundreds of millions of dollars in NYC annually. If that amount was spent in some poor african country, it will greatly transform their economy. Having the UN HQ in Africa will also help bring political stability to that continent.
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TelliameD–
I liked your idea so much that I left a note on the first diplomatic limo I could find:
“Why not just move the United Nations to some country in Africa? These diplomats must be spending hundreds-of-millions of dollars in New York City annually. If that amount was spent in some poor African country, it will greatly transform their economy. Having the UN headquarters in Africa would also help bring political stability to that continent.”
But it almost wore out my apartment key!
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Start towing. At least it will be an irritation having to find your car.
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I don’t have a “Unified Theory for Parking Ticket Delinquency amongst Diplomats”, but here are the possible reasons …
Russia: Communist hangover. Parking is a public good that Everyone is entitled to for free.
France: We don’t want our wives to know where we parked last night.
Brazil: No money for parking ticket, after we spent it all at the discotheque.
Cameroon, Mauritania: If we paid the parking ticket, you would have a reason to withhold foreign aid.
Yemen, Egypt, Kuwait, Nigeria, Indonesia: All good parking spots near our mosques have been taken over by people who never seem to leave their cars.