KITT From ‘Knight Rider’ Got a Speeding Ticket — While in a Museum

If you ever needed proof that automated traffic enforcement can go spectacularly, absurdly wrong — here it is. The Volo Auto Museum outside Chicago recently received a $50 speeding ticket from the New York City Department of Finance, claiming that its replica of KITT, the iconic talking Pontiac Trans Am from Knight Rider, was caught doing 36 mph in a 25 mph school zone on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn.

The only problem? KITT hasn’t moved in years. The car is bolted to a museum floor in Illinois, quietly living out its retirement surrounded by other Hollywood vehicles and wide-eyed visitors. It has not been to New York. It has not been to any state, actually, other than Illinois. It is a museum exhibit.

And yet, there it was — a notice from the NYC Department of Finance, a $50 fine, and a traffic cam photo showing a black Pontiac Trans Am with a California novelty plate reading “KNIGHT.” That’s the same plate seen on the show. The same plate on Volo’s replica. A real ticket, sent to a car that can’t leave the building.

“Well, this is a new one,” the museum wrote on social media, calling the situation “100% legit” while making clear their KITT had not budged. They also jokingly asked if anyone had David Hasselhoff’s phone number, suggesting the Knight Rider star might be the one who owes them the money.

How Did This Even Happen?

The best guess museum officials have is that a different vehicle — someone else’s black Trans Am fitted with a novelty “KNIGHT” California plate — was the actual car on camera. When the system ran the plate, it somehow traced back to the Volo Museum in Illinois, which legitimately holds the registration tied to that plate on its replica.

“The fact that we’re legally tied to a movie prop is interesting,” marketing director Jim Wojdyla told the Associated Press. “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.”

It gets stranger. The same Trans Am — or at least the same plate — has now been linked to five more unpaid violations in New York City. So whoever is out there driving a KITT lookalike through the five boroughs has been busy.

One commenter on the museum’s Facebook post said he’d run into a similar situation, claiming a guy in southern Indiana drives his own KITT replica on a novelty plate through a toll bridge into Kentucky — and the charges keep ending up on his legitimate Indiana “KNIGHT” EZ-Pass account. Apparently this is more of a problem than anyone anticipated.

Another commenter had a more entrepreneurial take: “So what you’re telling me is that I should run movie car license plates on all my cars when I go through tolls.”

NYC Says the Ticket Is Being Tossed

The New York City Department of Transportation has since confirmed the obvious. “NYC DOT’s automated speed enforcement cameras are extremely accurate, with 99.7% of all violations upheld,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “This violation was issued in error and will be dismissed.”

So KITT’s record will remain clean — which feels right for a car voiced by William Daniels, the same actor who went on to play the beloved Mr. Feeney on Boy Meets World. Mr. Feeney would never speed in a school zone.

The Volo Auto Museum had requested a hearing to fight the ticket before the city stepped in, and given that their entire defense is “the car is literally inside our building and has been for years,” they were probably going to win that one anyway.

As for the real culprit — whoever’s out there turbo-boosting through Brooklyn in a black Trans Am with a KNIGHT plate — KITT’s lawyers would like a word.