How Shady Drivers Have Recently Cost NYC Up To $75M

The City reports:

Delinquent drivers do everything from bending their license plates to putting plastic covers over them to spraying various chemicals to make it impossible for the cameras to accurately read them, according to city Department of Transportation officials.

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

Across the country, the number of driving fatalities has soared to nearly record levels during the pandemic over the past two years. In New York City, the empty streets led to a spike in speeding and a jump in fatalities.

Read the full article. There’s much more.

The cameras have long struggled to capture all the plates but the number of unreadable images has gone from roughly 1% or lower of all the tickets issued each month from January 2016 until March 2020 to nearly 4% in December 2021, the most recent month available via FOIL.

— Reuven Blau (@ReuvenBlau) April 25, 2022

As the MTA announces a “blue ribbon-panel to combat fare evasion,” car drivers have used bogus or obscured license plates to avoid speeding and red light tickets at least *1.5 million times* since the pandemic started. https://t.co/LlDczMF5z0

— Emily Gallagher (@EmilyAssembly) April 26, 2022