Vanity Plate Proves Costly

By Johnny Cat in Auto & Transportation on Oct 18, 2009 at 6:55 pm

That’s Scottie Roberson, whose nickname is “Racer X” and favorite number is seven. He combined the two for his vanity plate: XXXXXXX.

Turns out that decision flagged his car for over $19,000 in parking tickets.

When Birmingham parking patrols find cars without license plates parked illegally or at expired meters, they enter seven X’s in place of the plate number, city officials said. The parking citation form calls for a plate number, and the practice is to use X’s when no number is available.

City officials are working to change the entry system to keep Roberson from receiving any additional tickets, Odom said.

“Maybe we need to go with nine X’s, or maybe we just need to leave that part blank altogether,” Dawkins said.

Link via The Obscure Store & Reading Room.

Tags: license plates, parking ticket, vanity, X

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ted
Oct 18th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Isn’t Vanity Place one of the spots in Monopoly?
Staxeon
Oct 18th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Um, maybe instead if its known practice the Alabama DMV should have never let him register that vanity plate. NY state DMV has tons of combinations locked out of their vanity plate system to prevent this.

They’re going to try changing the working habits of how many employees and update the entire ticketing system, instead of telling one guy he needs to change his plate? Tax dollars what?
Johnny Cat
Oct 18th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
ted: I think that was actually a failed tv show in the 80s thx.
Church
Oct 18th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
What Staxeon said. I thought the story was going to be that it was flagged for having “XXX” (as in porn films) in it. I’m amazed that nobody thought to lock out that code.
K!P
Oct 19th, 2009 at 2:30 am
the software they use to ticket should just have a “no licence plate” checkbox, instead of using stupid workarounds.
wow
Oct 19th, 2009 at 3:28 am
your tax dollars at work!
Allen Garvin
Oct 19th, 2009 at 10:18 am
similar to the famous “No Plate” story: http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/noplate.asp

(marked ‘true’ on snopes)
Carol
Oct 19th, 2009 at 11:37 am
My genius cousin got a tag that read “NO TAG” in Georgia. $150,000 in fines, several TV interviews and court appearances later, and that is no longer a choice for tags in GA.
TheDiversePurse
Oct 19th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
That sucks.
Moon
Oct 19th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I’ll say what a lot of people are thinking.

The guy is kind of a doosh. His nickname is “Racer X” and he gets a license plate with 7 Xs on it.

He deserves all the tickets he gets.

Sheesh.
Carl
Oct 19th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Carol your cousin’s an idiot if he thought it would be funny to try to get away with endangering public safety for the sake of a joke. Not that I’m a fan of traffic cameras in the slightest.

All this reminds me of the guy who randomly filled out his vanity plate with zeros and the letter “O”. He doesn’t even know what his plate it. Neither do the people who try to read it on the cameras.
BamaChris
Oct 20th, 2009 at 1:13 am
Haha, wow. Sucks for him.

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