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Mayor Crushed 'Illegally Parked Car' With Tank: Posed for Photo Op

By Cynthia Hsu, Esq. on August 03, 2011 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

If you're the Lithuanian mayor of the country's capital of Vilnius, and your constituents are deeply concerned with the increase of illegally parked cars around city streets, what would you do? Well, one option as mayor is to crush a car with a tank in order to send a message.

Okay, crushing an illegally parked car is certainly not the usual punishment for parking violators. Usually, those who park in bicycle lanes in the city might have to pay a fine, or maybe get their car towed. Not the strictest forms of punishments.

And certainly not as severe as getting your car run over by a tank.

As seen below in the video, which was posted on the mayor's YouTube channel, Mayor Arturas Zuokas seems even a bit gleeful about running over the illegally parked Mercedes with the tank.

Mayor Zuokas told the Irish Times that he wanted to send a message to those who love to illegally park.

And, of course, he wanted to ensure his constituents that he would be pulling all the stops on fighting the rampant numbers of illegally parked luxury vehicles.

A spokeswoman for the mayor's office noted that the mayor wanted potential parking offenders to "heed his message," and that the car was bought specifically for the mayor's video, reports The Guardian.

Maybe this type of illegal parking enforcement would do well for cities here in the States? Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas are certainly rife with a fair number of high-end vehicles that park illegally, don't pay the parking meters, or are parked in no-park zones.

Though of course, if a mayor here decided to crush a car with a tank, they'd likely be facing a lot of heat. And, as cheerful as the Lithuanian mayor looks while crushing the car, he likely wouldn't be so cheerful if the car actually had an owner, who might be a little mad - and a little litigious - once seeing their crushed wheels.

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