Obama Fined For Unpaid Congestion Charge

By · July 20, 2011 at 9:27 am · 6 Comments · Miscellaneous · Report an error ·

Next time I'll walk.

Barack Obama, The Most Powerful Man In The Universe, owes £120 for late payment of the congestion charge. The US President incurred a fee while visiting London a couple of months ago. He didn’t pay. So he’s now been billed with a penalty notice.

The supposed transgression is challenged by the US, which sees the charge as a tax from which diplomatic vehicles are exempt under the 1960 Vienna Convention. Transport For London, meanwhile, has a policy of charging on any and all vehicles with foreign plates, even diplomatic ones.

Curiously, according to the Evening Standard, only one car in the President’s convoy got a fine. It wasn’t The Beast, as the cameras were unable to record its licence plate (It’s 800 022, in case they want to follow up). Why just one car? Is that all the cameras could pick up?

The Presidential penalty adds to an overflowing pot of £5 million in unpaid charges disputed by the US Embassy. Boris Johnson personally questioned Obama about the debt during the last visit.

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  • Anonymous

    Does this mean British politicians can go through and ignore toll charges in the US?

    According to this from 2006 they cannot: http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/non_aviation/print.main?id=1206291

  • Duncan

    Do you think they will send the Bayliffs round to recover the costs? Maybe they could tow the car away!

  • Damian Hockney

    Stuie, US politicians pay tolls in the UK, but they do not pay the C-Charge ass it is genuinely defined in international law as a tax. Indeed, the Swedish C-Charge was renamed the Congestion Tax after the EU gave advice to embassies that they do not have to pay C-Charges either. The UK will not take or publish lawyers’ views on the C-Charge as the facts are embarrassing to HMG…it is irrelevant whether you support the C-Charge or not. Duncan, it is against the law for anyone to tow away such cars and the fines and penalties are far greater. If the Government did this, or any agency of the state, it would do so knowing that it was breaking laws which the UK itself takes advantage of in other countries.

  • Damian Hockney

    Stuie, US politicians pay tolls in the UK, but they do not pay the C-Charge ass it is genuinely defined in international law as a tax. Indeed, the Swedish C-Charge was renamed the Congestion Tax after the EU gave advice to embassies that they do not have to pay C-Charges either. The UK will not take or publish lawyers’ views on the C-Charge as the facts are embarrassing to HMG…it is irrelevant whether you support the C-Charge or not. Duncan, it is against the law for anyone to tow away such cars and the fines and penalties are far greater. If the Government did this, or any agency of the state, it would do so knowing that it was breaking laws which the UK itself takes advantage of in other countries.

  • Alan

    WOW The US must be broke more than we thought

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GFJAGTPLIEAEYXNEHZPNE55GQM Julie

    I hope he doesn’t pay it. They have some nerve trying to force him to do so.

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