via  The Birmingham News H/T How Appealing:

For Huntsville resident Scottie Roberson, the letter X — seven of them, to be exact — led to more than $19,000 in Birmingham parking tickets.

Roberson said he has been to Birmingham only once in the past five years and left without a ticket. He said city officials told him the tickets were issued by mistake because of his vanity plate — XXXXXXX.

Roberson, 38, said the plate is an homage to his days of building custom cars, when he was given the nickname “Racer X.” He uses seven X’s, he said, because seven is his favorite number.

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.

I had a friend in Virginia whose Vanity plate read “1I1I1I1I.” The police could never properly distingush between the Number “1” and the Letter “I.” As a result, he never had to pay the tickets.

Hopefully my John Galt License Plate (still hasn’t arrived yet) won’t get me any tickets. Though I’m doubtful.