Getting a parking ticket is one of the low points of car ownership. We've all been there at some point--misreading a sign, accidentally staying too long or simply hoping we'd get away with a temporary indiscretion.
You aren't alone--a certain Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and ex-U.S. Secretary of State, has fallen foul of London's parking regulations, her Mercedes-Benz S-Class caught parked in a space in Westminster, for 45 minutes, without paying.
Most amusingly, reports the Daily Mail, Mrs Clinton's security agents promptly jumped from their own car to argue with the traffic attendant writing the ticket--to no avail. Clinton herself doesn't appear to be present in any of the photos, but the traffic warden doesn't back down despite being surrounded by the group of security staff.
Mrs Clinton was in London for an event at Chatham House, where she was collecting an award for international diplomacy. Perhaps most diplomatic of all would be to pay all relevant fees of the nation hosting your visit. There's little chance of that though, the Mail reporting that collectively, foreign embassies now owe over 70 million British pounds (approximately $111 million) in unpaid fines and congestion charge fees. The U.S. alone is responsible for over a tenth of that figure.
So there's a silver lining at least--if you've had to pay a parking fine recently, at least it wasn't for over $10 million...
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