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Knight Rider Car Parked in Museum Since Decade Got a Speeding Ticket
The Volo Museum near Chicago received a $50 New York City speeding ticket for its Knight Rider replica KITT car, which has not moved from its display in years. Someone else is driving an eerily accurate replica around Brooklyn and nobody knows who.
Challan Snippet From Museum’s Facebook POST
Somewhere in Brooklyn, someone is driving a pitch-black 1982 Pontiac Trans Am with a California novelty plate that reads KNIGHT.
They are doing 36 miles per hour in a 25 zone. They are not stopping.
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And an Illinois museum just got their speeding ticket.
The Volo Museum near Chicago recently received a $50 traffic violation in the mail from New York City, alleging its replica of KITT from the 1980s TV series Knight Rider was caught on a speed camera doing 36 mph in a 25 mph zone on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn on April 22.
There is one significant problem with that allegation.
The museum's KITT replica has not moved from its exhibit in years and has not been driven on a public road in over a decade.
It is a museum display. It does not drive. It certainly does not drive to Brooklyn.
Marketing director Jim Wojdyla said the museum thought it was a joke at first. "We are famous for our large movie and TV car collection, so at first we thought it was a joke," he told USA Today.
It was not a joke. The ticket was real. The $50 was real. And New York City's camera system had traced the California novelty plate KNIGHT directly back to the Volo Museum in Illinois.
New York City is authorized to operate up to 750 speed cameras across the city. When a camera catches a vehicle doing more than 10 mph over the limit, it photographs the car and plate and mails a ticket to the registered owner. That is exactly what happened here.
The system worked perfectly. It just ticketed the wrong KITT.
If you have followed this far, here is where this becomes a genuine mystery.
Someone out there has built a replica of KITT so accurate it fooled a New York City speed camera. It carries a California novelty plate reading KNIGHT. According to the California DMV, a person with the last name Knight renewed that exact plate registration in March.
The Facebook group Knight Rider KITT Car Club, for people who own replicas, has nearly 19,000 members. So there is no shortage of people passionate enough about a 1980s TV car to build one. But someone in that community is apparently also passionate enough to drive theirs through Brooklyn at 36 miles per hour without paying the ticket.
The Volo Museum is now requesting a hearing to dispute the fine. They are also doing something else entirely.
The museum changed its Facebook header to read "Home of the Knight Rider KITT that famously got a speeding ticket in New York City without ever leaving its exhibit in Illinois." One post read: "Does anyone have Hasselhoff's number? He owes us $50."
Wojdyla said the museum genuinely wants to find whoever is doing this. "We want to find out who this Knight Rider guy is because birds of a feather. We just want to know, is this from a museum, is this just a guy that built this car as a hobby? And it looks pretty damn accurate. We'd like to meet those guys."
He added: "The fact that we're legally tied to a movie prop is interesting. We're known for having our Hollywood cars from TV and movies, but I have no idea how we got registered from a ticket in New York to the plates in California to the Volo Museum in Illinois. We're still trying to figure it out."
A car that has not moved in a decade just got a speeding ticket from a city 800 miles away. The ticket is real. The fine is real. The hearing is scheduled.
And somewhere in Brooklyn, KITT is still out there. Running red lights. Dodging cameras. Probably talking back.
Editor's Note: The Volo Museum's brush with New York traffic enforcement is a perfect reminder that bureaucratic systems are only as smart as the humans running them. Somewhere between a California novelty plate, a Brooklyn speed camera and an Illinois museum exhibit, the paperwork ended up exactly where it should not have. The real KITT would never have gotten caught.
