City-State Task Force Begins Removing Dangerous Ghost Cars From City Streets
City and State leaders announced the launch of a multi-agency city-state task force dedicated to identifying and removing so-called “ghost cars” — cars that are virtually untraceable by traffic cameras and toll readers because of their forged or altered license plates — from New York City streets. Yesterday, in an overwhelmingly successful inter-agency operation involving the NYPD, the New York City Sheriff’s Office, MTA bridge and tunnel officers, the New York State Police, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department, authorities impounded 73 cars, issued 282 summonses, and arrested eight individuals.
“By launching this city-state task force, we are sending a clear message: if you attempt to alter your license plate to avoid traffic cameras and toll readers, you will be caught,” Governor Hochul said. “The safety of New Yorkers is my top priority and in partnership with Mayor Adams and law enforcement, we will swiftly remove elusive vehicles from our roads. Now, I’m calling on the Legislature to join our efforts and work with us to pass additional protections for New Yorkers in the final budget.”
The primary focus of the task force’s work is to remove vehicles with fraudulent or modified license plates — and those with no tags at all — from city streets, as these vehicles are often unregistered, uninsured, or stolen. While the illegal practice of forging or altering license plates is not new, the crime proliferated during the pandemic, with drivers masking their identities by using counterfeit temporary paper plates to evade detection. The fake “temp tags” appeared as though they were issued by out-of-state dealerships, making them difficult to verify. In some cases, vehicle operators in New York City used this cloak of anonymity to commit more serious violent crimes, including hit-and-runs, robberies, and shootings.
In her Executive Budget, Governor Hochul proposed legislation that would improve toll collections throughout the State by increasing fines and penalties for driving with altered plates, prohibiting the sale or distribution of covers that obscure license plates, allowing police to seize illegal plate covers, and restricting DMV registration transactions for vehicles with suspended registrations for failure to pay tolls or failing to remove plate-obscuring materials.
To combat this scourge during 2022 and 2023, the NYPD, the New York City Sheriff’s Office, and their law enforcement partners arrested nearly 11,200 drivers and impounded their vehicles, seized almost 12,900 additional vehicles, and issued motorists more than 21,200 moving violation summonses.
The NYPD’s Transportation Bureau established the inter-agency task force with the mission of conducting eight-hour enforcement operations approximately once a month. Times and locations around the city will be chosen after analyzing toll and motor vehicle data.
In its first outing yesterday, Monday, March 11, 2024, the task force performed traffic-safety actions at three river crossings that enter Manhattan: the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, and the Lincoln Tunnel. Law enforcement utilized marked police vehicles, including various-sized tow trucks, automated license plate reader technology, and officer observations. In addition to the outside agencies, NYPD units involved in the undertaking included the Highway Patrol, the Citywide Traffic Task Force, the Auto Crime Division, the Traffic Enforcement Division, the Aviation Unit, the Legal Bureau, Community Response Teams, and more.