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  1. Politics
23 May 2011

Barack’s Beast beaten by bump

The president’s car was left stranded for six minutes in Dublin after failing to go over a speed bum

By Duncan Robinson

Whenever President Obama visits a foreign country, one of the first things newspaper editors do is go through the startling statistics of the president’s car. With five-inch-thick windows, eight-inch-thick doors and a footmat woven from Kevlar, it is no wonder the car is nicknamed “The Beast”.

Unfortunately, while it may be bulletproof, it is not speed-bump-proof, as the video below shows.

As the car leaves the US embassy in Dublin, the president’s Cadillac gets stuck on a minor speed bump. For six minutes. The mighty Beast was beaten.

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What will the ramifications of this be? Probably none, but it’s never good for politicians to look foolish on camera, even if it isn’t their fault. Just ask Neil Kinnock.

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