Apparently fines aren’t keeping folks from parking in the bike lanes in Lithuania. So, rather than increase the number of traffic cops on patrol, Vilnius, Lithuania mayor Arturas Zuokas recently took matters into his own hands, driving an armored tank down the streets of his town and, oops!, crushing an illegally parked Mercedes. That’s a shame.
The mayor even posted the video of his little traffic patrol expedition on his Facebook page. Turns out, the stunt was a set-up, to draw attention to the issue of illegal parking, but we still enjoyed the mayor’s video. “You have to have a sense of humor in my line of work and I thought this would be a way of drawing attention to the fact that the city intends to be proactive in its fight against illegal parking,” Zuokas told the Small World News Service. The issue is near and dear to the mayor’s heart, as he is an avid cyclist and has created numerous bike lanes in his city during his tenure.
Via Treehugger
How much CO2 did this stunt contribute the global warming? Those APC aren’t the greenest things on the planet.
I assume this was just some sort of publicity stunt. However that does look like a new Mercedes.
Fantastic PR stunt to draw attention to a cause. Hats off to the Mayor.
@lazyreader: New? No, not really. Pretty old one. But still, if that’s a working car, what a waste.
Perhaps Mr Zuokas and his APC (hardly a tank !) could be induced to take a brief sea journey across the Baltic and come to Stockholm, where they would find a fertile field of application for their method of dealing with motor-car drivers who use bike lanes as parking places ?…
Henri
To caeman, you missed the point. To lazyreader, great handle, try reading the article before commenting. The article contained all the info necessary to understand what was happening and even has a video to show you. . . I don’t understand why so many people take the time to comment when they won’t take the time to read the article. Lame.
I didn’t miss the point. Rather, I see the hypocrisy in saying it is okay to allow an APC with huge amounts of CO2 emissions to pull off a stunt like crushing a new car, one that is diesel-based no less, and gets fantastic MPG, can carry more groceries than a bicycle and can even transport your two kids at the same time. All that energy and resources put into building that car, for it go to waste, when there are needy people without car that need reliable transportation for their commutes.
But, why think about the little people when that doesn’t achieve your goal, right?
@ caeman, The goal is a green zone, and bike lanes and is good for the greater number of people. Thew little people you are talking about are parking their cars in the bike lanes illegally. Fines were not keeping the people from parking in the bike lanes. And the little person in this example is and overprivlidged rich person who felt entitled to park in the bike lane. In this case it is the little person that is thwarting the goal and this goal is better for the greater good. There were no needy people in this video and there is no need to take it off topic.