DPS Sends Photo Radar Ticket to Designer of Novelty License Plate After a Truck Sporting the Decorative Plate Was Caught Speeding

www.azsmartblonde.com

​Here's a new way to potentially beat the dreaded photo-radar cameras: Buy a novelty license plate.

This method apparently worked for one Arizona speeder, whose large white Dodge pickup truck went speeding past a photo radar station and the camera snapped a shot of the license plate that says, "N Joy AZ."

Anyone who has ever been to a gas station in this state knows that anywhere in Arizona could have their very own "N Joy AZ" plate -- they're non-legal novelty plates.

Thing is, a Tucson man's "N Joy AZ" license plate isn't a novelty -- it's the real deal, and he's the one who ended up with the ticket intended for the owner of the white truck, the Arizona Daily Star reported this morning.

Jay Taylor designed the "N Joy AZ" license plate in 1991 as a novelty item for the state's tourism board. In appreciation for his work, Taylor was given the legal plate with the same slogan.

Department of Public Safety officials sent Taylor the ticket for the speeding white truck, despite the novelty plate's being on the front bumper of the pickup and not on the back bumper of Taylor's Lexus sedan.

Arizona law states that a valid license plate be placed on the back bumper of the vehicle. In this case, the cameras neglected to actually snap a photo of the truck's back bumper and whoever (if anyone) looked at the photo before sending it out apparently didn't realize they were looking at a license plate that could be purchased in a gift shop for about three bucks.

Taylor tells the Star that this is not the first time this mistake has been made but that it is the first time anyone in Arizona, where just about everyone and their mother is familiar with the faux-plates, has failed to recognize an "N Joy AZ" license plate on the front of a car as a decoration and not an actual license plate.

Taylor was once given a parking ticket in California that was intended for a car donning the fake plate and was once contacted by authorities in Kansas for his car's involvement in a bank robbery. Needless to say, after very little explanation, Taylor was cleared.

Considering nobody at the DPS photo-enforcement unit seems actually to be paying attention to these things, how about this for a new novelty plate: "FU PHTO RADR."