U.N. diplomats getting fewer tickets, paying faster

For years, United Nations diplomats were notorious for running up millions of dollars in parking tickets, then just laughing at the city's attempts to collect. Diplomatic immunity meant there was little U.S. courts could do about it.
But the city's thousands of foreign officials have largely changed their ways since a threatened crackdown three years ago.
According to New York's finance department, diplomats have gotten 90% fewer tickets since late 2002, when the U.S. threatened to revoke the plates of scofflaws and subtract however much they owed in fines from the foreign aid their countries received....