As New York City prepares to implement congestion pricing in Manhattan, police are issuing about 75% more tickets for “ghost cars” – vehicles with covered, obscured or fake license plates, according to data shared with Gothamist.
The much-anticipated tolls for vehicles entering Manhattan below 60th Street will read license plates and charge cars $15 and large trucks up to $36 per trip.
Experts warn that without even stricter enforcement, the program could lead to an increase in the number of vehicles illegally avoiding toll roads and speed cameras by using fake, dog-eared or illegible license plates. This new wave of fare evasion could sap the program's long-awaited and much-needed revenue, undermine its traffic mitigation goals and ultimately drive up prices for those who pay.
“If certain people don't pay, that means those who follow the law will end up paying more,” said Elizabeth Adams, deputy executive director of public affairs at the public transit advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. Congestion pricing is legally mandated to bring in $1 billion per year in tolls; If not enough people pay the $15 fee, the rate could rise to meet that goal, Adams contends.
Sam Schwartz, a transportation consultant who once served as New York City's transportation commissioner, predicts that without strict enforcement, one in five drivers could have their license plates covered once the new tolls take effect.
Schwartz said counterfeit records are cheap and easy to purchase. He said he was able to get a fake Mississippi license plate on eBay for just $15 – “the fee for just one trip” in a passenger vehicle at city rates.
“I won’t use it, but I did it just to show how easy it is,” he said. “If I were a bad guy, I would put it on my car and drive around without worrying about cameras following me.”
Other drivers used plastic signs, reflective paint, surgical masks and even leaves to hide their followers from cameras.
The predicted increase in ghost plates could cost the MTA hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, according to Schwartz. Fare evasion could also undermine the program's ability to solve the problem it is designed to help solve: reducing the number of vehicles on Manhattan's streets.
“If we fundamentally give some people the green light to cheat the program, we will not have a fair system for funding our public transit and will not reduce the congestion that our climate crisis and our crowded streets are so demanding right now,” Adams said.
At an MTA board meeting last week, Chairman Janno Lieber said the MTA and other agencies would step up efforts to make toll fraudsters pay their debts.
“We’re going to crack down on this and make sure people don’t get away with it because the credibility of it all is important.” [congestion pricing] Effort is at stake,” he said.
Camera dodging with few consequences
In 2022, the Adams government announced a targeted crackdown on scofflaws who bend, cover or swap their license plates to avoid tolls and traffic tickets. Since then, police have written hundreds of thousands of tickets, issued thousands of citations and towed several thousand vehicles. The city also banned the sale of camera-blocking license plate covers within city limits, including through online retailers such as Amazon. And eagle-eyed New York commuters who spot the license plates in public — and some even restore the license plates themselves — can now call wayward drivers using the special 311 complaint category.
But some drivers still evade the camera. According to the Department of Transportation, about 5% of cars that ran red lights or speed cameras this year could not be located because of fake, missing or illegible signs – compared to just 1% of cars in 2019. And MTA cameras According to a recent report from the agency's Bridges and Tunnels Committee, the city cannot collect tolls from about 6% of bridge and tunnel riders. Data analysis by Streetsblog found that sightings of the defaced license plates increased 200-fold between 2017 and 2022.
Transportation experts say the new congestion charges, expected to come into effect next spring, could trigger a new wave of toll fraud.
Data provided by city police suggests the city is increasing some forms of license plate enforcement ahead of the congestion pricing start date. So far this year, officers have written more than 12,000 moving citations for concealed license plates — three-quarters more citations than this time last year, according to data shared with Gothamist. The number of tickets for concealed license plates remained constant at about 230,000 during the same period, and arrests for temporary license plates fell by about a quarter. All three metrics have increased significantly compared to their pre-pandemic levels.
New Yorkers also call 311 to report the record pirates. So far this year, the NYPD has received an average of more than 1,500 complaints per month from members of the public, up from about 1,000 per month midway through the year. 2022, when the category was first introduced.
But a closer look at both data sets shows that many drivers who avoid the camera are undeterred and, in some cases, get away with it. Of the more than 300,000 tickets issued for license plate violations between July 2022 and June 2023, about a third were given to drivers who had accumulated at least five tickets this year alone. About two dozen drivers had more than 100 tickets each. And about 60% of the 311 complaints resulted in no correction, according to the city's service requests database.
Adam White, a lawyer, cyclist and former license plate vigilante, says that without stricter enforcement as a model, even drivers with intact license plates could start paying for their license plates as soon as tolls begin. White himself was arrested for revealing an obscured license plate. He later sued the city on allegations of criminal breach of trust.
“If enough people do it without consequences and people in the neighborhood see them, then.” [they] Start thinking, 'Wait a minute, I'm the only one who pays taxes,'” White said. “‘I’m the only one affected by this. Why should I be the idiot holding the bag?'”
The experts and advocates interviewed by Gothamist all had different ideas about how the city could stem the tide of toll fraud. Schwartz, the former traffic commissioner, said police should leave traffic enforcement to the Department of Transportation, which he said would be better placed to legislate against offenders, including police officers caught with concealed license plates. White, the lawyer, wants police to use powers that allow them to separate license plate pirates from their vehicles, including boots and seizures. He also wants the federal government to step in and ban paper plates, which are a popular choice among toll drivers.
Adams and others are pushing for laws that would make it harder to obtain fake foreign license plates. A City Council bill introduced last spring would ban the sale and distribution of counterfeit labels.
Another bill announced last week would increase the maximum fine for an obscured or obscured license plate to $1,000. According to the New York Department of Finance, the current fine for a parked car with an obscured license plate is $65.
“I mean, it's like a couple of trips over the Verrazzano Bridge,” said Councilman Robert Holden, one of the new bill's sponsors and a sworn enemy of the plate swap scofflaws. He said the penalties for driving with concealed license plates must outweigh the cost savings.
“Where there is a will, there is a way,” he said. “If someone can save a lot of money by covering their plates, they will do it. And they will do it in very creative ways, whether through technology, covers or a sheet.”