Jelani Sample gone from licenses, not hearts
So long, nice run.
Long live Sample Driver.
The Arizona Department of Transportation, or ADOT, is redesigned its driver’s licenses and ID cards, complete with new security features.
And a new picture of the driver on the sample license.
Since 2014 it’s been the now-lamented Jelani Sample, a spiky-haired fellow wearing a red T-shirt and a smile best described as vulpine. He looks like he knows something — like he’s got something planned if he can just get out of this DMV and get on with it.
Certainly, he gets around: Jelani is also the sample ID photo for Indiana and Nevada ID cards.
Jelani Sample, you had a Say hello to Sample Driver, the new face of Arizona licenses
Maybe that’s where he went. He went somewhere, because he’s gone, replaced by the new face of Arizona drivers: Driver Sample, our new patron saint of illegally passing on the right while honking at snowbirds. Or using the passing lane to drift slowly until the line of traffic building up stacking up behind you reaches halfway to Tucson.
Let’s just hope she knows what
“leading green” means.
She is a woman in a black-and-white photo, with a pleasant smile. She looks happy to be there, getting her license photo. Like Jelani, she is an organ donor; she is also a veteran. Thank you, Driver, for your service.
Jelani and Driver were both born in 1974, but look younger, which is nice. And not surprising, as in Arizona you only have to renew your license every time Halley’s Comet comes around (or
thereabouts). They have different Phoenix addresses, so presumably, they’re not related. (He lives at 123 Main St. She resides at 1234 Example St.)
Don’t worry: ‘The Sample family will continue’
“Jelani will still be on the previous driver license, but the Sample family will continue,” Bill Lamoreaux, a spokesman for ADOT, said.
Sort of. On Jelani’s license, Sample is his last name. On Sample’s, it’s her first.
Then there is the other Driver Sample, the man on the new license for drivers under the age of 21. He lives at the same house as the first Driver Sample, though they do not resemble each other.
Although he’s quite a bit younger, born in 2003. Maybe he’s her son. Or her nephew. Or maybe they figured that if they have defied the astronomical odds of both having the same odd name, they might as well share a house. Who knows? Weirder things have happened. Maybe it cuts down on junk mail.
The (kind of disappointing) origin story of Sample Driver
As for the change, “the reason for switching models was simply based on the stock photos,” Lamoreaux said. “The photos used in the sample cards are what the vendor has access to. We changed vendors and they use different stock photos.”
That’s a little disappointing. Better to wonder what Jelani is up to these days. Was he downgraded to maybe an elementary-school sample ID badge? Or maybe he got a promotion and now he’s on sample Apple security badges.
Whatever the case, we won’t see the likes of Jelani again.
Unless he shows up on another sample somewhere else. Hey, it’s a living.