Recently, some drivers in the Big Apple were spotted subtly hiding their license plates in an ultra-low-tech way to avoid New York's highly unpopular congestion tolls, which just went into effect. There is a possibility that it will be used.
The Post found a variety of these sneaky DIY tactics in action, often deployed on new and luxury cars, costing the city hundreds of millions of dollars each year. It's reminiscent of the ongoing “ghost plate” issue.
It's unclear whether the observed fraud is a direct result of the new $9 toll entering midtown Manhattan, but on Sunday, when the toll went into effect, more Most of the sightings were near the border of the congestion zone.
The most basic method is to hide or change one digit on your license plate.
This was often done by scratching letters and numbers, such as on cars with the letter L painted white, to blend in with the background color of today's New York plates.
Another vehicle found near the toll plaza had the letters E and zero partially hidden by what appeared to be gray paint.
The sophistication of this method makes it difficult for police to notice anything unusual and also makes the plates unreadable on camera.
If the MTA's gantry-mounted toll readers tried to sniff out license plates modified in such a way, they could read the plates incorrectly and not be able to charge the driver's account.
The Post saw several similarly altered plates in Manhattan around Lexington Avenue and East 61st Street, and near Canal Street, not far from the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge.
In others, noticeable bends or white streaks in the paint have been observed spanning the width of the plate and directly through all the letters and numbers, making it easy to embarrass paid cameras without drawing the attention of law enforcement. It is possible to change the appearance to a sufficient degree.
Some drivers have used paint and tape to change one number to resemble another, perhaps borrowing a trick from the days of changing grades on middle school test papers. One such plate had the number 6 bolted to it to look like an 8.
Because the LED flashers are placed directly on either side of the VAS plate, they can temporarily “blind” the license plate reader camera trying to read the digits to charge you.
The newspaper also saw numerous license plates coated with some kind of translucent adhesive, making them difficult to read even to the human eye.
Plates coated in this way typically appear cloudy when viewed from the rear and create a refraction effect when hit by the fare reader camera flash, making it more difficult to record the complete plate number.
Bronx City Councilman Oswald Ferris, who is pushing for legislation to crack down on ghost plates, said Monday that drivers using fraudulent or concealed license plates are a “widespread” problem across the city.
“If a driver gets these ghost plates for running a red light or speeding, just wait until you think about the congestion toll they have to pay to get onto 60th Street,” he pointed out.
One well-known tool of the trade is installing fake dealer plates on the back of the car. This plate can be easily removed when needed and can be obtained from unscrupulous car dealers or printed at home.
Those attempting to evade tolls are also equipped with sophisticated devices straight out of a James Bond movie, such as “plate flippers” that allow drivers to rotate license plates with the push of a button from inside the vehicle. Sometimes high-tech methods are used.
At a news conference Monday, the Post asked Gov. Kathy Hochul to take effect on a new toll system aimed at raising billions of dollars in funding for a $15 billion transportation network from 2020 to 2024. It asked for opinions on how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority or the state plans to determine gender. Capital Improvement Plan.
“There will be more data than you can imagine. Today is the first day, so we won't count today's data. Let's take a few days to see the trends,” Hochul told the Post.
“We're going to analyze the data to see what the impact is. Emergency vehicle response times, length of drive time, there's a lot of data to analyze,” she asserted. did.
Asked if the data would be made available to the public, Hochul said, “Of course,” and said it could be released as early as Tuesday or later this week.
— Additional reporting by Aneeta Bhole
