Body in Motion

Having lived in New York and Washington, I know all about the diplomats who park where they want. What I didn’t know is that all those unpaid parking tickets can come back to haunt the offender’s nation. I recently discovered that unpaid parking tickets of cars registered to foreign nationals get subtracted from their home country’s foreign assistance package.

Israel is apparently the biggest offender of the last year with over $2 million in unpaid fines. Considering Israel receives more US foreign aid than any other country in the world, it’s not surprising the Israelis aren’t particularly worried about finding that golden parking spot, the requisite 15ft from the nearest fire hydrant.

I suppose I shouldn’t be pointing any figures since I left an unpaid ticket behind last time I left Namibia. In my own defense, I did try to pay the ticket on the day it was issued but couldn’t manage to get through the bureaucracy without a fairy godmother. I don’t know how invested the Namibian government is in withholding assistance to the US, but I do have a friend who was brought up on contempt of court charges in Windhoek when he showed up in board shorts to defend his habitual forgetfulness on the parking fine front.