CAIRO: Once again Egypt is leader of the pack in unpaid parking tickets in New York City. Egyptian diplomats collectively hold $1.19 million in unpaid tickets. Egypt is followed by Kuwait and Nigeria, with $1.3 and $1 million in outstanding dues, respectively. The New York Daily News has been running an annual piece on the parking violations of diplomats in New York for several years now. A ranking of violators is compiled using data from the New York City Department of Finance. The diplomats responsible for the violations work at the UN or the Egyptian consulate. Egypt s consistently poor ranking is perhaps not surprising to most Egyptians. If the state of parking and driving in Cairo is any indication, Egyptian diplomats abroad are doing a fine job. In Cairo, there are streets with double-parking on either side. Sidewalks are often blocked by vehicles and people take to walking in the street instead. Delivery trucks will stand idle for hours in intersections. Drivers will squeeze their cars into impos
sible spaces which are better suited for a bicycle. The city is also notorious for its chaotic traffic. Staying below the speed limit or within designated lanes are not necessarily positive qualities in a driver. And the concept of parking violations in Egypt is virtually unknown. In short, parking is a spirited sport. But New Yorkers have become enraged by the egregious violations of foreign diplomats who hold immunity. The State Department issues special licenses to diplomats, protecting them from parking violations and ensuring their cars are only towed in emergencies. But this immunity does not extend to consular-licensed vehicles. The impact of Egyptian diplomatic violators is two-fold: they clog traffic and do not yield the same revenue from tickets which other drivers do.
The current economic crisis has brought greater urgency to the situation.
What could once be passed off as a humorous piece of trivia is instead a serious problem which is denying the city of New York of desperately needed revenue. New York senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand are even asking the Senate Appropriations Committee to begin deducting 110 percent of the fines from the annual aid countries receive from the US.
Egypt ranks third in recipients of US aid, after Iraq and Israel. Cutting this aid to pay for tickets would put a dent in Egypt s budget. Diplomats have been warned about parking in the past, but such legislation would be the first to truly punish violators. Whether Egyptian diplomats will start parking their cars legally remains to be seen. You can take the Egyptian out of Cairo, but you can t necessarily strip him of his battle-hardened parking practices, even in New York.
