Clerical issue leaves Arizona driver waiting more than a year for license plate

By Kirsten Johnson

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    ARIZONA (KNXV) — Al Miller describes himself as “the old car guy.”

He and his wife retired to Arizona and have quickly become known in their Sun City West community.

“They see me with my top hat on and I wave at everyone here and it’s kind of a little local custom,” Miller explains.

While he has a modern car for everyday use, he’s known for taking a 1929 Ford Model A for joy rides in the community.

Miller inherited the vehicle from his father who bought it in 1956. His father spent years going through each one of the parts to keep it as original as possible.

When Miller moved to Arizona, he needed to title and register both of his vehicles with the state. There were no problems with his everyday vehicle but for the Ford, he needed an historic vehicle plate.

He was told it would take a while due to the pandemic and the system being backlogged. So, he kept waiting. However, after more than a year, he went to the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division in person to get an update.

“That’s when I discovered it was incorrectly ordered in the system,” recalled Miller.

He says he was told his historic plate had been entered into the system as an ‘antique’ plate. Each category has its own requirements and ‘antique’ wasn’t correct for Miller. But, since more than a year had passed, he says he was told the transaction couldn’t be fixed in the system.

To get his historic plate, he was asked to pay again.

“I had paid for this plate, I’d paid for five years registration and I didn’t think it was right for them to deny me a plate after I’d paid for it,” said Miller.

The Let Joe Know team reached out to the Arizona Department of Transportation which runs the MVD. Just hours after reaching out, action was taken. Miller was issued his correct license plate at no additional cost.

Now he is able to cruise around his community worry-free!

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