Traffic offenders with “ghost” license plates cause a whopping $200 million in damage to New York City each year – fueled by a thriving online cottage industry selling “James Bond-level” gadgets, a new analysis shows.
The illegal vehicles whizz through toll booths and past New York Police Department speed and red light cameras 100,000 times a month – using their illegible license plates to avoid fines and other penalties, says Mark Levine, president of the Manhattan borough, whose office conducted the study.
“You can be sure that knowing that their license plate is unreadable will affect people’s behavior,” Levine told the Post.
The scourge of “fake license plates” consists of driving without license plates or using license plates that are scratched through, covered by tinted or reflective covers, or completely fake.
Levine’s office’s analysis found that more than 5 percent of all vehicles that pass the city’s Department of Transportation, MTA and Port Authority cameras each month are now unreadable.
Aside from the inherent danger of drivers speeding through school zones and red lights, ghost license plates are costly due to uncollected traffic tickets and tolls, the borough president said.
“We estimate at least $200 million and probably more,” Levine said.
Growing concerns about the proliferation of such ghost license plates have recently prompted authorities in the New York City metropolitan area to take a series of measures to combat the illegal license plates.
A joint NYPD-MTA operation last month nabbed 200 motorists, including a career criminal with a loaded gun suspected of a 2005 murder.
Levine said the proliferation of speed, red light and toll cameras in the city ironically has the unintended side effect of encouraging dishonest drivers to damage, obscure or falsify their license plates to avoid tolls and fines.
“Counterfeit license plates were quite rare before,” he said.
“We’re seeing James Bond-level technology where you can lower a cover at the push of a button,” Levine said.
In fact, one such license plate cover device was for sale on Facebook Marketplace on Friday, where a New Jersey seller touted it as a “disappearing license plate.”
When a key fob was pressed, a cover like a garage door folded over the license plate, completely covering the letters and numbers, as a video accompanying the post shows.
The Post also found that non-compliant reflective license plate covers were openly for sale on Facebook Marketplace under names like “Toll Cheat License Plate Cover” for up to $60 a piece.
Other fraud options are less sophisticated, such as a license plate on a Kia Sorrento parked in a bus lane at the corner of Jamaica Avenue and 149th Street in Queens on Friday.
The letters and numbers on the sign were almost all scratched out and thus practically unreadable.
Luther Sibuea, 48, an Uber driver who took his 5-year-old son to Moore Homestead Playground in Elmhurst, Queens, on Friday, said all parents are concerned about drivers with ghost license plates.
He said such drivers could potentially hit people, including children, and speed away without being caught because they would not be caught by the camera in the school zone.
“‘Bye, bye’ is what the speeder would say,” said Sibuea, waving his hand as if he were saying goodbye to someone.
“So it’s about more than just not paying parking tickets.”
Tashi Tsering, 51, whose two sons were also at the playground, said the city needs to consider how to tackle the ghost plate problem.
“The cameras alone are not enough,” said Tsering.
Levine, who is considering running for city treasurer, suggested that the state add radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to registration stickers.
Such RFID tags could be read by radio receivers attached to cameras to ensure that license plates match registration and fines can be collected, he said.
Nevertheless, it is presumably possible that lawbreakers also tamper with these signs.
With the help of artificial intelligence, illegal license plates could also be assigned to properly registered vehicles, the analysis says.
“We also propose that cameras record not only the license plate number, but also the make and model of the car,” Levine said.
Levine said vehicles with fake license plates would need to be clamped when parked and that minimum fines for obscured or fake license plates would need to be increased to at least $150 per violation.
Finally, the online market for ghost license plates must be closed, he demanded.
“We need to crack down on these fake license plates and identity-obscuring devices on the internet,” he said.
Dozens of City Council members last year called on U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to implement reforms to curb the sale of counterfeit paper license plates, which are sold in other states and are becoming increasingly common in the city.
