GHOST CAR GOVERNANCE

Oﬃce of the Manhaan Borough President License Plate Fraud Prevention 1

A PLAN TO CURB FRAUDULENT, OBSTRUCTED,

AND PHANTOM PLATES

Oﬃce of the Manhaan Borough President License Plate Fraud Prevention 2

Ghost Car Governance

Table of Contents

Introduction ....................................................................................... 3

Fraudulent, Fake, and Defaced License Plates ......................................................................... 3

Recommendations .............................................................................. 4

Improve Enforcement of Illegally Obstructed, Defaced, and Fraudulent License Plates ........... 4

Amend Outdated State and City Policies that Prevent Enforcement ......................................... 6

Oﬃce of the Manhaan Borough President License Plate Fraud Prevention 3

Introduction

Fraudulent, Fake, and Defaced License Plates

Unsafe, Unfair, Unenforced

Defaced, obstructed, and fraudulent license plates are plaguing New York City’s streets, posing a

serious challenge to law enforcement and regulatory agencies. License plates that are scratched out,

obscured by tinted or reﬂective license plate covers, or altogether fake make detecting and penalizing

ghost cars nearly impossible. As the City and State increasingly rely on cameras for the enforcement

of speed, tolls, curb management, and more, the proliferation of fraudulent and defaced plates

severely compromises the enforcement of traﬃc laws and collection of tolls.

Each month, more than 5% of vehicles passing through speed cameras, red light cameras, and toll

stations operated by the NYC Department of Transportation, Metropolitan Transportation Authority,

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority are

unreadable. Over 100,000 license plate images passing through DOT-operated cameras alone are

unreadable every month – and the number of unreadable plates increases each month. In total, there

are hundreds of millions of dollars in tickets, ﬁnes, and tolls from enforcement cameras that go unpaid

for such things as speeding, running red lights, and evading tolls every year.

This trend is growing and threatens New Yorkers’ safety. We must ensure that every vehicle has a

readable and valid license plate.

To address this challenge, the Manhaan Borough President’s Oﬃce proposes a series of

recommendations that will hinder bad actors’ ability to obtain fake and fraudulent plates and provide

law enforcement with the tools necessary to properly enforce traﬃc law.

Oﬃce of the Manhaan Borough President License Plate Fraud Prevention 4

Recommendations

Improve Enforcement of Illegally Obstructed, Defaced, and

Fraudulent License Plates

Adopt next-generation digital license plates in New York State

The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles should put radio frequency identiﬁcation (RFID)

tags or other digital technology on each registration sticker. These tags would be easily read by radio

receivers that could be added to cameras used for tolls, speed enforcement, red light enforcement and

parking enforcement, ensuring that license plates properly match the vehicle identiﬁcation number

(VIN) and registration associated with that vehicle, so that the toll or ﬁne can be properly collected.

The federal government should adopt requirements that digital tags be installed on every vehicle

during manufacture, thereby helping to reduce fraud and make enforcement possible regardless of

the state from which a vehicle is registered.

Provide every NYPD traﬃc enforcement oﬃcer with training and

equipment to recognize and ticket fraudulent or obstructed plates

Every enforcement oﬃcer on the street should have the training and hand-held tools to recognize

fraudulent plates, identify plates that don’t match the vehicle, run those plates through the DMV, and

ticket or impound cars as necessary, all from the curb. This will vastly improve the ability of NYPD to

properly and eﬃciently enforce against bad actors on the street.

Increase the use of AI tools to accurately identify partial plate matches

and obstructed plates

Artiﬁcial intelligence and machine learning can help camera enforcement operators match partially

obstructed plates to properly registered vehicles and vehicle owners. Currently, as many as 5% of

license plate pictures are “unreadable,” requiring the use of tools that can match and help locate

vehicles with partial plates based on additional information collected by cameras, including car make,

model, and color.

Oﬃce of the Manhaan Borough President License Plate Fraud Prevention 5

Increase ﬁnes and penalties for vehicle owners caught with fraudulent or

obstructed license plates

Enforcement oﬃcers should be empowered to remove illegal license plate covers on parked vehicles.

Additionally, vehicles with fraudulent license plates should be booted when parked, and immediately

seized when being operated without a valid registration. Minimum ﬁnes for obstructed or fraudulent

plates should be vastly increased to a minimum $150 per oﬀense, and points should be put on licenses

for driving improperly registered cars.

Stop the sale of fraudulent and temporary plates and covers

Fraudulent license plates, as well as license plate covers, are easily purchased online on platforms like

Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Instagram, and TikTok. Some businesses are selling completely fake

plates, while others are selling “dead” plates -- real metal license plates no longer registered to any

vehicle that are impossible to recognize as fraudulent at a glance.

Though the sale of products designed to conceal or obscure licenses will be illegal come September 1,

2024, we need strong enforcement tools in place to stop illegal sales. State and local law enforcement

agencies should be prepared to aggressively ﬁne and close retailers who sell these products illegally.

Oﬃce of the Manhaan Borough President License Plate Fraud Prevention 6

Recommendations

Amend Outdated State and City Policies that Prevent

Enforcement

Create a traﬃc and parking enforcement equity task force

This task force should conduct a comprehensive study of current parking and traﬃc enforcement

policies and paerns. Increasing reporting to 311 on paper tags and license plate obstruction will

provide key data about enforcement paerns and where there are gaps in proper enforcement.

Lessons from this study should be used to beer target violations that are particularly unsafe or

inequitably enforced.

Create a residential parking permit program

The State should give New York City the power to create a residential parking permit program. Such

a program could be tailored to meet the needs of each neighborhood and would help beer manage

our curb space, raise badly needed revenue for neighborhood upgrades, and help crack down on

fraudulent car registrations.

Create enforcement reciprocity agreements between neighboring states

Poor collaboration and data sharing between New York and other states is leading to serious

challenges in holding accountable repeat toll-evaders from out of state. Though New York State has

enforcement reciprocity agreements with Massachuses, there are no agreements with New Jersey

or Pennsylvania, meaning many tools to enforce the law are unavailable. New York State, New Jersey,

and Pennsylvania should enter into agreements that allow each state to properly enforce traﬃc and

registration laws in their states, regardless of a driver’s home state.