Obstructed, improper license plates cost NYC roughly $75M in camera fines, report says - SILive.com

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- New York City has lost out on roughly $75 million in automated enforcement revenue over the past two years due to obstructed or improper license plates, according to a new report from The City.

For years, motorists have been devising different ways to avoid tickets from the city's speed and red light cameras, often bending their license plates or covering them in a plastic coating rendering them unreadable.

Though the Department of Transportation (DOT) does not publicly disclose instances in which city cameras are unable to read the license plate of a vehicle recorded for an automated enforcement violation, a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request filed by The City has shed new light on the issue that has only grown worse in recent years.

The data obtained by The City shows that from January 2016 to March 2020, roughly 1% of monthly automated enforcement infractions featured an unreadable plate, meaning the vehicle in question could not be ticketed for the offense.

However, the percentage of unreadable images has since skyrocketed, with nearly 4% of images featuring an unreadable plate in December 2021, the last month for which The City had received full data.

Since March 2020, there have been approximately 1.5 million instances in which speed or red light camera tickets were evaded through the use of obstructed or improper plates, costing the city up to $75 million in lost revenue, with each automated enforcement violation carrying a fine of $50, according to the report.

"Drivers using illegal license plates to evade accountability make our city more dangerous, while taking away revenue from life-saving street improvements," Danny Harris, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, told The City.

The reported uptick in automated enforcement evasion comes at a time when the NYPD is ticketing far fewer motorists for obstructed or improper/missing plates than had been the case in years past.

During the first three months of 2022, the NYPD has issued a total of 1,280 citywide plate-related violations, down roughly 71% from the 4,355 such violations issued in the first quarter of 2021, according to NYPD data.

On Staten Island, the NYPD only issued 29 violations for plate-related violations during the first three months of the year, down roughly 84% from the 180 such violations issued over the same timespan in 2021, data shows.

"As New York City faces rising traffic violence, city and state leaders must investigate and put an end to the proliferation of illegal plates," Harris told The City.