Scofflaw drivers with “ghost” license plates are costing New York City a whopping $200 million a year — fueled by a burgeoning online cottage industry peddling “James Bond-level” gadgets, a new analysis reveals.
The rogue vehicles whiz through tolls and past NYPD speed and red-light cameras 100,000 times a month — using their unreadable plates to dodge fines and other penalties, said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, whose office conducted the study.
“You better believe it influences behavior when people know their plate is unreadable,” Levine told The Post.
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The ghost-plate scourge involves driving without a plate altogether or using tags that are scratched out, obscured by tinted or reflective covers or are completely phony.
The analysis by Levine’s office found that more than 5% of all vehicles passing by city Department of Transportation, MTA and Port Authority cameras a month are now unreadable.
Beyond the inherent danger of motorists speeding through school zones and red lights, ghost plates are costly in terms of uncollected tickets and tolls, the borough president said.
“We estimate at least $200 million and probably more than that,” Levine said.
Growing concern over the proliferation of ghost plates has led New York City-area officials to recently launch a series of crackdowns.
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A joint operation by the NYPD and MTA last month snared 200 motorists, including a career criminal with a loaded pistol who is a suspect in a 2005 murder.
Levine said that ironically, the city’s proliferation of speed, red-light and toll cameras had the unintended side effect of inspiring dishonest motorists to deface, obscure or fake their plates to dodge tolls and tickets.
“It was pretty rare to see fake plates before this,” he said.
“We’re seeing James Bond-level technology where they push a button to drop down a cover,” Levine said.
Such a plate-covering gizmo was indeed for sale Friday on Facebook Marketplace, where a New Jersey seller hawked it as a “vanish license plate.”
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With a press of a key fob, a cover dropped down over a license plate like a garage door, completely obscuring its letters and numbers, a video with the post shows.
The Post also found authority-thwarting reflective license plate covers openly for sale on Facebook Marketplace under names such as “toll cheat plate cover” for up to $60 a pop.
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Some other cheating options are more low-tech, such as a license plate sported by a Kia Sorrento parked in a bus lane at Jamaica Avenue and 149th Street in Queens on Friday.
The plate’s letters and numbers were nearly all scratched out, making it all but unreadable.
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Luther Sibuea, 48, an Uber driver who took his 5-year-old son to Moore Homestead Playground in Elmhurst, Queens, on Friday, said all parents worry about drivers with ghost plates.
He said such motorists could hit people including kids and speed off, never to be caught because they evaded detection on a school zone camera.
“‘Bye, bye,’ the person speeding would say,” Sibuea said, waving his hand as if telling someone goodbye.
“So, it’s more than not paying tickets.”
Tashi Tsering, 51, whose two sons were also in the playground, said the city needs to figure out how to tackle ghost plates.
“The cameras alone are not doing the job,” Tsering said.
Levine, who is mulling a run for city comptroller, proposed that the state put radio frequency identification tags on registration stickers.
Such RFID tags could be read by radio receivers added to cameras, making sure license plates match the registration and fines can be collected, he said.
Still, scofflaws could presumably tamper with even those tags.
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Artificial-intelligence tools can also be used to match obstructed plates to properly registered vehicles, the analysis contends.
“We’re also proposing that cameras record not just the plate number but also the make and model of the car,” Levine said.
Levine said vehicles with fake license plates should be booted when parked and that minimum fines for obstructed or fake plates need to be increased to $150 minimum for each offense.
Finally, the online market for ghost plates has to be closed, he said.
“There needs to be a severe crackdown on these fake plates and obscuring devices online,” he said.
Dozens of City Council members last year urged US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to enact reforms aiming to curb the sale of fraudulent paper license plates sold in other states and increasingly seen in the city.
