I usually buy paper plates at my local supermarket.

The horror stories are either urban legends or signs that somebody was dumb enough to screw with their neighborhood gangsters or the neighborhood boys in blue -- usually the same people. As far as I'm concerned, anybody that dumb has no business living in New York, and would do better to move back to small-town Minnesota.

Laws in nyc are just suggestions now.

As far as I'm concerned anyone as dumb as you should be shipped out of the city.

Just rip their plates off and throw them in the garbage.

Pay my ticket and I'm gone.

especially traffic stuff. it seems if you aren't being egregious breaking the law, nypd doesn't give a fuck

That easy, eh? Shoot me your email and we'll sign a contract. Best $10 I ever spent.

The plates are inside the vehicle.

All 311 complaint NYPD has to handle automatically die a quick death.

So smash the window then.

I like the smash of your jib.

A guy on my block does this. He has a paper NJ plate in his back window that he has out for the two ASP days. All other times he has a regular NY plate on these long threaded rods so he can easily pull it on and off. He has about $4k of fines on both plates and parks at the hydrant every day, but has never gotten towed.

On one hand I'm pissed he's getting away with it while I drove around for 30 mins trying to find a spot the other day. But at the same time, if he parked legally, there would be one less spot for me.

Cause they negatively affect the poor and poc.

Deblasio killed 311.

Thank you captain 🫡

I called 311 on a car parked at a hydrant over night. Not only did they ticket it, they sent me a receipt that it was done.

Yeah, I would be walking by his car at night with a hoodie and face mask on and accidentally dropping nails in front and behind all his tires. Accidents happen.

yeah the nypd is such a sensitive and woke organization that they’re not doing their jobs out of concern for the poor and POC lol

report him to 311 repeatedly with the details of both plates. it sometimes works.

hope someone lets all the air out of your tires

key the cars and smash the windows. technically abandoned property. just be ready to get in a fight or run if the owner happens to be near

How does this car not get booted? Seems like an easy impound and $$$ for NYPD, either from fees or from selling the car if it isn't claimed

:)

I don't own a car. Or a bike. You'd have to settle for punching my lights out, I guess. You ok with that? You can even tie me to chair first, if that helps.

They look the car up and if the KBB is less than 2000$ then they will never tow. They know that no one in their sane mind will ever come pick up a clunker and pay 3000$ to get it.

Nyc live or die by it

Yeah. We've been raising awareness about this for literally years. r/MicromobilityNYC. Glad everyone's starting to really get upset about it

We should be really clear about what this is: it’s corruption. The law isn’t being applied evenly, and we know in particular that members of the NYPD pull this shit all the time.

i’ve submitted a few dozen reports (UWS, 80’s) in the last 18 months—mostly for placard abuse or expired paper plates and (literally) more than half were closed with “we investigated and there was nothing to do” within minutes of hitting submit. zero chance anyone did anything except click “close”.

it’s plackard abuse it’s nypd looking out for personal cop vehicles it’s paper plate cockiness it’s increasingly construction overstepping their permit limits* it’s construction jobs reserving spots for workers via fake “no parking” crap

I submit my reports with my google voice number and a throwaway email. I’ve heard too many stories about crank calls and threatening contact to be that stupid.

the feeling of helplessness is real.

*NYCDOT actually took the time to write a real signed letter to say “we really want to help, but enforcement belongs to the nypd”. NYPD spit on the ground and said “bullshit. NYCDOT’s problem”. yeah.

nah, i'm gonna let the air out of your tires, even if i have to buy you tires first.

I don’t ticket is an issue. Problem is the paper plate are fake and whoever owns the car doesn’t care

You don't want to be that person driving with paper plates tho lmao

Wait. How does he get away with not having registration and inspection in his bottom left window when he leaves the Ny plates on?

I got a neighbor with out of state plates that either removes it or puts in a out of state plate dummy plate when he parks illegally. He’s gotten towed once the last decade. I don’t drive so idc. He’s not unique. All the cops in my neighborhood park illegally with their placards on full display. Hydrants might as well say reserved parking.

NYPD doesn’t get money but how do you know he has 4K fines?

Like this honestly caused me to gulp. This is the ordeal

So true, the poor love getting run over by cars

Why do you care if someone’s parked at a hydrant overnight lmao

311 closes my complaints request saying they took care of it when they dont.

I kinda wish I had a spring loaded window punch just for these situations.

The vehicles will be towed when the city decides to repave the street, they’ll be forced to tow it to another street. Until then, I’m sorry.

I once got a minibus with no plates towed after submitting a complaint on a abandoned vehicle, it was parked on a corner making the right turn difficult. Saw a few days later it had a ticket, then it was gone. Either towed or the owner realized someone didn’t like it there. But this was a while ago.

They don’t need to they can auction it off still

Why not they're most likely saving money on insurance and tolls, while everyone else does the right thing.

Turning right on red is a thing again

Do what I do. Start ripping the paper plates off... Let then drive and park without any kind of plates

As long as there’s a ticket a tow truck will remove it

And occupy a spot with a clunker when there's an overabundance of relatively newish Ubers in the city? You do the math.

Those are the cars that car thieves should target. What the driver gonna do? Call the cops?

How can they track the offences for a car with fake/temp plates? Is the VIN visible somewhere on the exterior?

how

You need to write an anonymous letter to the local precinct. Make it sound urgent 🚨 I. e car might have been used in the commission of a crime.

Only way the city will care.

It's on the driver side encased in the bottom side of the windshield to make it hard to cover. Meter maids press a button and scan the thing when they prefill the tickets. At a minimum it pulls car info like temp registration (dealer license) & insurance. If neither cone up, car shouldn't be in the streets by law.

Gotcha. If neither comes up, hopefully the car gets towed immediately!

What are you talking about?

I once got a call back from NYPD. The guy was very polite. “Why do you think the plate is fake?” “Because it’s Virginia but been in the neighborhood for a month…. and it’s paper…. and it’s expired…. and the numbers are intentionally obscured.” I thought for sure someone would actually come this time, but na, just changed the status of the 311 complaint and left it.

Brooklyn cop here. Part of my assignment is dealing with exactly these types of complaints. I respond to these calls daily directly as they come into the system or following up a few days after they are closed. The problem I’m facing is that people are leaving cars parked for extended periods of time with no plate and the vin obstructed. We cannot issue a summons to a car without a vin or a plate so we cannot summons tow it through the department. When I try to have these vehicles towed via rotation tow the tow companies either tell us that the yards are filled to capacity or that they don’t have a tow available (both of these scenarios are likely bullshit but either way they refuse to come out). As for blatantly derelict vehicles sanitation absolutely refuses to tow and dispose of cars. Not sure what has changed on their end but they pretty much just defer the derelict vehicle back to the precinct for rotation tow and rotation tow is not available or refuses to come out. The fake plate issue is out of control. The long story made short for fake plates is that the DA will not prosecute forged/fraudulent instrument cases unless the defendant straight up admits to creating and displaying the plate on his/her car. We went heavy on enforcing them a few years ago and most cops have since stopped due to the risk of lawsuits when the DA inevitably drops the case. I don’t even know what to say about the cops calling complainants and harassing them besides fuck them.

I learned this in a super terrifying way while riding my bike home from work on the late side. Fuckin yikes. Just assume every car is willing to run reds and cannot see you.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8243211/De-Blasios-NY-social-distance-snitch-hotline-suspended-bombarded-prank-calls.html

There was a crazy funny one.

Eggs do nicely too.

I moved here from a state where its legal and thought the no right on red thing was so stupid.... until I actually arrived in Manhattan and realized everyone has a e-bike that goes damn near as fast as a moped

Ban cars

adams and nypd are allergic to working

First, thank you for following up on these.

Second, wow, that's a crazy loophole - obstruct all identifying information (plate, VIN) and you're basically safe as long as no private party tow is available? Bonkers but I guess I understand it.

I live in the Heights, and there is a dude on my block who always parks in the crosswalk or in front of a hydrant.

He literally has no license plates on his car. No visible VIN. I’ve never seen a ticket on his car.

Not a total clunker either, like a ~10 year old Saab.

This almost makes me want to buy a car

If it's got plates, it's NYPD's problem. If it's got no plates, it's Sanitation's problem.

Sanitation acts slowly. NYPD acts never.

So if nobody's responding to your 311 complaints, change the car so as to make it Sanitation's problem.

Sounds like shenanigans. What do you think is going on?

Absolutely this. Abandoned cars, cars with obscured/fake/paper plates, etc are hazards and/or potential unaccountable hit and run incidents. Those cars need to be disabled.

I appreciate the detailed answer, sincerely.

And I appreciate you trying your best at this, also sincerely.

But man that is just a hugely exploitable situation.

Any thoughts as to why Rotation Tow + Sanitation both refuse to handle it? I know what my best guess is, but I'm hoping there's a less cynical alternative explanation.

Throw a rock through the window let nature do the rest

Lol so committing a crime and harm to personal property is the way to go?

Bet you do it when no ones around lol. Try that when the owner is in or by their vehicle.

• Bug your councilmember
• File a DSNY abandoned vehicle complaint
• Bug your NCOs

Yeah if cops won't enforce the laws then why not? Vigilantism is better than anarchism.

OTOH, if your place is on fire and a fire engine needs
water from that hydrant, how does NYFD handle that? Do they have a huge saw that cuts two slices and let’s
them remove five feet wide from the car’s middle
near the hydrant?

Slash the tires

So basically obey the law and register you car and pay a penalty or forge the plates and you get free parking.

What does POC stand for?

I’d guess that he want the NYFD to be able to quickly put out
a fire if it’s about to engulf his home.

Since they are committing a crime then they have no viable reason to report any wrong doings applied to their vehicle so pretty easy decision here.

People/person of color

https://nycserv.nyc.gov/NYCServWeb/PVO_Search.jsp

Do nypd boot or just the sheriff department? There was an abandoned van with boot in a no standing zone in a very very popular roadway. 311 didnt work so i finally had to publicly call the local police station out on Twitter with the mayors office and 1 police plaza tagged. They told me they couldnt get the boot off because it was the sheriff. So it took another week for them to come out and take the boot off. Then 2 more weeks of constant tweeting for them to finally tow the van. Its been there for more than 6 month. You could see the google streetview from april 2022 and the van has been there with a boot.

You have to rock the boat on twitter. Some asshat parked their van in front of a no standing zone and just left. I think it was stolen. Anyways, finally went on twitter and tagged the mayors office, the local nypd station, and the council person for that area. At least i finally got a response than just a closed out 311 complaint.

DAMN RIGHT, start keying and slashing tires now in 2023

Those cars are the thieves, dude. They're not gonna steal thier own vehicles lol

Duh? Lol

There should be a subreddit of people posting pictures of the particular vehicles and their locations so as to catalog the overwhelming issue around the city. It can be used as proof that the city isn't doing anything.

I am NOT* suggesting anyone do anything nefarious with this information, simply a catalog of the city's incompetence so as to light a fire under someone's unproductive ass.

*I don't care.

Voting has consequences.

Hose goes through smashed windows on both sides

>a state where it is legal

Actually NYC is the only place in the nation where it is default illegal without signage. Everywhere else in the US it is legal to turn right on red unless prohibited by a sign or traffic signals.

Stipulated. Who do I vote for to get NYPD to take vehicle related infractions, fake plates, and toll cheating seriously? Actual question.

Fake plates are automatic dropped cases. DA Bragg made that clear

Rotation tow are private tow companies. They are trying to run a business and the only way that business makes money is if people come and retrieve their towed cars. Abandoned cars and cars with fugazi tags are less likely to get picked up.

I have no idea what’s going on with sanitation lately. Pre-Covid they were great with removing abandoned vehicles. I haven’t seen them remove a single car from my precinct this year.

Don’t forget that all those cars with fraudulent plates are uninsured. So people who obey the law also pay a higher premium in insurance.

We also have a culture of pedestrians walking on red even when cars are coming through across the street.

Don’t it sucks.

Wow thank you for this. Our block went pretty hard trying to get the abandoned cars (14 at one point) on our block removed, and they retaliated by sending sanitation to give us all citations from garbage caused by the vehicles not being moved for street sweeping.

I gotta ask…do you have any unethical pro life tips on getting these cars removed? Hahaha (but seriously?)

Too many organizations/business/conflicting policies dealing with the same problem. Like everything else city government is deferring a massive problem to the NYPD without providing the tools necessary to fix it.

Literally wrote to two NCOs with an excel spreadsheet of 20 SRs from a truck who parks on the sidewalk with a placard. Their response was to get more info on the placard, ignoring the fact the truck was on the sidewalk. These people are insane.

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Include mention of the nypd placard as well.

they scan the ny registration barcode. the vin isnt scannable, its just raised lettering on an aluminum or steel plate

Any comment on the trend of false instrument toll evasion by your brother and sister cops?

>the only way that business makes money is if people come and retrieve their towed cars.

False. If the vehicle goes unclaimed, the tow operator exercises a mechanic lien and then owns the car. They sell it to boneyards for parts and scrap.

Yes. Get a decently strong SUV with 4wd, a few chains, and 2 or 3 people who genuinely know what they're doing so they don't literally kill somebody by accident.

Wrap chains around a frame member of the junk car. Securely and sensibly attach the other end of the chains to the SUV (this is NOT necessarily an intuitive process, and if done incorrectly, can severely damage the SUV.) Drag the junker into the street, as cockeyed an angle as possible, to obstruct as many lanes of travel as possible. Once the vehicle obstructs traffic, it'll disappear within 48 hours.

Rinse and repeat.

It’s funny how entitled you people are, I have a legit paper tag on my car since I just bought it and someone keyed my brand new car for no reason, luckily it was caught on camera and they were handled but y’all are playing with fire.

@placardabuse does this. Proficiently. Zero impact other than increased harassment from “enforcers” in NYPD traffic.

That doesn't address the apathy in the other boroughs.

What a fuckin dick thing to say.

I’ve dealt with this and had some success. So the car needs 2 summons before you can have it towed. I’d use the 311 app and call right when alternate side parking goes into effect and they can ticket the car. Take pics and everything for the 311 complaint- I used the app. After 2 tickets it’s now on YOU to have the car towed, the PD allegedly doesn’t tow cars and your local politicians can’t do anything to help. I found a tow truck driver that will take cars by asking at a local auto shop for a recommendation. Lots of tow truck drivers won’t even tow the cars. Now you have to hound the tow truck driver. I had my driveway blocked for like 10 days by an abandoned car. I also bought a huge floor jack to just move a car if it happens again. Allegedly the police will move a car if it is in the street abandoned (not in a parking space). So that’s an option as well if all else fails. We are basically on our own with the abandoned cars, at least in Brooklyn.

True, but they would rather not deal with the time constraints and whatever else goes into that process. They don’t want to come out for a car that’s going to sit in the lot taking up space. We are not allowed to tell them what kind of car they are getting. So from the tow operators point of view they could be getting a 30 year old piece of junk which it likely is if PD is calling.

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I think at this point those cars should be considered the block's anger venting cars and take a sledge hammer whenever someone needs to vent.

It’s horrible to think of but if there was a fire the FDNY would take out his windows to run a supply line to the hydrant. Think of that and him coming out and seeing it. That may warm your heart. That said it is horrible because people are affected by a fire.

This was exactly my experience. I got really weird calls from somebody who I thought was an NYPD traffic agent, but after reading this, can almost confirm is not. Who is 311 giving our personal information to?

Was it actually NYPD who called you? I got a very similar call but they had a blocked #, never addressed themselves, and I believe it to today to have been the car owner himself.

The car I was reporting had no registration or an expired one.

The one I reported had a (fake?) NYPD placard.

At this point the only thing actually stopping me from obscuring my own plate is that I support the MTA. Social collateral. There is no actual reason not to. There is no enforcement.

I wonder if they’d change their tune if there was a fire- and fdny smashed the windows to run the hose through.

No way of knowing. Certainly possible it was someone who works for 311 and/or NYPD making the call unofficially

This happened to me multiple times. I do believe that a lot of these “abandoned cars” belong to police officers or family or friends of officers. The excuses they gave were just like this and they were closed within minutes to an hour or two. You can’t get a cop to respond to a 911 call in that amount of time, so obviously something fishy was going on.

TIL

This is exactly what I suspected happened to many of these cars and even suggested just that, and it did nothing.

Are you adjacent to the precinct on 82 by chance? The cops seems like they (ab)use those streets pretty much how they see fit with no regard for the public.

Happy Cake Day! :D

ding ding!

Thanks!

Lol give them a raise to drive in the expensive city? I dunno what you want him to say payaso conio. Nypd is 5 years workout a contract and can't even fill an academy class with the number of people leaving.

Some guy in Park Slope called 311 on a cop who was parking his personal pickup truck in a bus stop every single day.

The cop actually got the guy's number from 311 and sent him harassing/threatening voicemails.

Time to start dumping them in the East River.

Holy shit crimeposting! Reported

I basically stopped driving in the city around the start of the pandemic. I had to do it again recently to move some furniture and I was really shocked at how much worse driving norms have gotten.

People driving on the shoulder of the BQE way more, obscured plates, casually running red lights, flashing brights at me for not running a red, etc. Truly feels lawless to a new degree.

You can be insured and not have plates. You can’t have plates and be not insured. They don’t insure the license plate they insure the car. Like when I purchased a car out of state I had insurance on it with paper plates and then registered it with DMV through the dealership. In between that time of getting my NY plates I could have had an accident and it would be covered by insurance.

Yet I got a ticket for expired registration on my brand new car....

To be fair a lot of the plates people are calling fake are completely valid or were valid in the past. We run the plates through a national database check. So a expired Virginia plate that was issued 4 years ago to a Chevy that is now on a Audi is not fraudulent in the eyes of the law. It’s just an expired plate on a unregistered vehicle. Now if I run a temporary NJ tag and I get a response from the system as “no record found” that would indicate that the tag is likely fraudulent. If It comes back as expired or belonging to another vehicle that’s a violation but not fraudulent. Obscured plates are a parking summons, unless they are obscured with the intention of avoiding a toll. In that case it’s theft of service.

No one is holding agencies accountable. It starts from the top of the City government.

I have never seen a car with forged plates that is insured.

That's no good, it might improve the water quality.

Ugh. Bug their Sergeant, and then the CO for the precinct. They have a community council meeting once a month — you could make stink there.

You could also write the CBS reporter Jenna DeAngelis who did a story on paper plates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwmM1Uf5qoQ Maybe convince her to do a followup?

And/or write the officers mentioned in the story (first.last@nypd.org):

• Deputy Inspector Conor Wynne
• Officer Steven Abrams
• Officer Michael Fokianos

As someone who bikes in the city, it seems like you can pretty much park wherever you want in general lol. In some places the bike lane is 90% parked cars, and seeing as it's cop cars half the time I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they don't give a shit either

See, the cop shouldn’t even have access to this information. How is that not a conflict of interest? How can cops be trusted when they’re misusing information to intimidate the public?

The companies with one Star reviews who tow cars are often the companies that don't give a fuck?.

What placard? No placard was mentioned in the comment.

Thieves thieving from other thieves?

In 2019 there was a used car dealership that was parking their car on the block for weeks, sometimes a few inches over the driveway so you could not properly pull in or out.

I unscrewed the fake plates, threw them in the trash, and called 311 about an abandoned car. It was gone by the end of the week.

Aka the police

How would the car owner know your number ?

The comment was edited

I work in a parking garage. You'd be surprised how many of these cars belong to military people and cops/corrections.

Exactly who most of these cars belong too. Cops, fire fighters, military etc

I almost got hit by a car the blew a red from a dead stop. Just gunned it into the intersection half way through the red. Insanity.

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Read the entire thread. 311 is giving out the phone numbers of those who make complaints.

Why don't you just smash his windows? There's no enforcement for that either.

I don't think I would be surprised.

Been saying this for years everyone rocking fake plates and the people with real plates get bent over

Expired plate and unregistered vehicles are not illegal? I’m confused

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No it wasn't. It's not marked as edited, and even if they did a quick edit, that would have to be within 3 minutes of the original comment to not receive an asterisk. Your comment came 20 minutes after their comment.

Because I do

How. It’s a dick move to call and get them ticketed. There’s obviously a reason someone’s parking at the hydrant risking a 150 dollar ticket instead of a legal spot, they’re not doing it for fun. If it’s ur driveway it’s a different story, but it’s a dickhead move to call 311 for someone parked at the hydrant

They are but they are a violation. A fraudulent instrument like a plate, registration, or insurance is potentially a felony. People incorrectly call expired or mismatched plates fake.

These scofflaws aren’t getting insurance like you did. Guarantee it

where do they print the paper plates out from, seems like it must be easy

I think I read the other day someone got a vehicle towed by having it obstruct traffic.

If there’s enough space between cars one of your neighbors could tow it out to the middle of the street. The city will be more than likely to clear up one of its streets then