In before the inevitable. No, the driving equality bill does not prevent cops from pulling over cars with missing or unreadable plates (it does contain language about plates, but absolutely says that the plate has to be readable and “clearly displayed”)

>Gyllenhaal found that, in New York City, about seven-percent of red-light camera tickets are unreadable, often because of license covering techniques.

>But, in Pennsylvania, Gyllenhaal notes, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has said that the impact of 'ghost cars' is negligible.

>Less than one-percent of camera-tickets are considered unreadable and, these have had "no significant impact" on turnpike revenue, the commission told NBC10.

Interesting, the way I see cars driving that are missing or have obscured license plates it seems like more than 1%. But maybe it's just because it's noticable.

The 1% is just on the PA Turnpike.

Where there are state troopers who would actually respond to such a thing.

Legalize civil forfeiture against cars without legal plates

>Locally, the Philadelphia Parking Authority told NBC10 that cars with the VIN numbers covered or a license plate missing will be ticketed and towed.

This part is a pure lie. I've been told by both PPA and PPD that there's nothing they can do if the plate is missing and the VIN is covered. This is after reporting the same vehicle a couple of times a week for over a year.

You'd think that would be fairly representative of the State. Would be interested to see what the results are on the speeding cams on Roosevelt Blvd, probably would be closer to NYC levels.

While technically you’re correct.

Inspection and Emissions are no longer a reason. When you inspect your car it has to be registered as well. Kills 2 birds with one stone. They’re incredibly visible and easy to read from a distance on the windshield. Majority of time an inspection pull over leads to iffy registration issues as well.

No registration stickers on plate anymore. So only way for a police officer to know if car is not registered or there’s issues is to randomly run their plate while driving, imagine that case going in front of Philly DA and judges. “Ran plate for no reason”

So inspection and emissions being whiped off is not good IMO, also, just generally I’d like to see vehicles with bad safety stickers be at least warmed on It as bald tires and worn brakes can kill

It's representative of the state, not the city

Let the towing companies seize obscured/no plate cars from the street.

Anecdotally, it seems like 10% of cars I see walking and biking around CC have some form of plate obfuscation. I rarely see no plates, though I do see a lot of questionable temporaries.

We’re have like 10 hit-and-runs a week. Why do you think these people are obscuring their plates?

No. Civil forfeiture should never come back in any form. Taking someone's property, without charging and convicting them of a crime that the property was tied to, and then using the sale of that property to fund your own budget is horrible conflict of interest and practice.

You can still get ticketed while parked for all that though. It just can’t be the only reason for a traffic stop.

Neither is the point of the article though

100% lie all you have to do is take your plate off and park wherever you want

I think its probably a higher incidence in NYC because they have so much automated enforcement for traffic. So people are looking to get away with it. Especially cops. There's lots of twitter accounts dedicated to exposing this. In general, with more automated enforcement, there will be a need to enforce rules on parked vehicles spotted with obscured tags.

A parking ticket written by PPA will just go to the stolen plate.

Pull over for inspection resulting in the registration being stolen, forged, expired etc is the best course of enforcement. Tow the vehicle, return to owner etc

PPA would just write a parking ticket for inspection and it’ll go to no one.

MANDATORY OBSCURED LICENSE PLATE ENFORCEMENT NOW

Even if they have a plate they will do nothing. There's a car with California plates with the sunroof open parked on Pennsylvania Ave that's been there for almost a year that we're reported and we got nothing. Its ridiculous

Yes, that is exactly what I said. And that's also why I said it would be useful to know the Roosevelt Blvd numbers. Ben Franklin Bridge toll evaders would be too.

The solution is for Philly police to do their job, but according to the FOP asking them to do the work they’re paid to do is offensive and anti-cop. PPD is a waste of our tax dollars

Oh! I get what you’re saying now. I’m talking about cars without inspection and registration stickers on the windshield. Even before the bill, they were so routinely stolen off plates that nobody got pulled over for that unless cops were looking for a reason to make a stop.

And this article is about plates. Not stickers.

Now, if your windshield stickers and your plate are fucked, they should still be able to theoretically look up the VIN and issue a ticket that way. And part of issuing tickets should involve looking for stolen plates and plates that don’t match the vehicle. But they don’t. And if the VIN is unreadable too, if there isn’t a law ok’ing a tow, there should be. There’s no actual reason this can’t be handled as a ticket.

snowflake generation of cops

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Yes its about 1% (1.8 million Turnpike transactions out of a total of 169 million transactions in 2020 for example) - but I wouldn't say its "negligible" the turnpike comission itself showed this was $104 million uncollected - https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-technology-laws-only-on-ap-carlisle-a2c9f6845ef5d8e1ce53f7a533ce0733

Just a reminder that security head bolt kits are available for not much at all online. They use security torx bolts (like the kind you see in public bathrooms on the turnpike, etc). They are far from foolproof, but they do make it slightly more difficult to remove your plates.

Edit: because most randos don't have the bit or key to remove them. Anyone worth their salt absolutely will. But it doesn't hurt to put them on.

This is completely unnecessary. No laws even need to be changed for these cars to be impounded. Our existing laws are not enforced.

It looked like one car in the video with no plate parked in Philly had a single window sticker from a non-I/M region (where safety, but not emission testing is required).

Fuck the PPD and their lazy fat asses.

They refuse to enforce the law. Defund them.

Hypothetically, could one put a fake plate on it?

> because most randos don't have the bit

Just like with bicycles and getting mugged, you don't have to be unrobbable. You only need to look like a harder target compared to what's nearby.

"Sorry your plate was stolen, but the police don't have to give your car back, because technically the case isn't against you, it's The People vs. '09 Honda Civic and 5 CDs Left in the Glovebox Since 2014."

Was behind a Lexus sedan with super dark tinted windows, a tinted plastic plate protector over the plates, and a PBA star covering the last 2 digits of the plate. Some straight up fucking BS

You can put a fucking Primo's flyer on it.

Source: That SUV that parks across from Primo's on 9th St.

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Just cover it with something. The PPA isn't allowed to touch your car, so they can't remove whatever is covering your license plate. My neighbor has been parking illegally on our block as long as we've lived here by just covering half his plate.

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Edited for clarity: they're not allowed to touch a car's license plate. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/our-money/Copping-a-free-parking-spot.html

I don't see too many driving with no tags, just parked. Are you seeing a lot of cars driving around without tags?

I’m saying if you wanted a car with no plate towed, could you put a fake plate on it?

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So do you have a suggestion of what to do about the cars with the removed plates and the obscured (totally by random chance) VIN's that just park wherever?

Ahhhh, I misunderstood. My bad.

You would have to put a fake plate, call the cops, cross your fingers that they come out and don't notice that the plate probably doesn't match the car, hope they ticket it, and then report the illegally parked vehicle to the police for towing. By that point, the driver has gotten at least 4-5 hours of free, illegal parking. Why would anyone follow the rules?

If there is a violation, impound the vehicle.

From the PPA

>Impounded vehicles are not released until the driver presents certification of proper registration, insurance, and driver’s license. You must also pay the total amount due, including all outstanding tickets, fees, fines, and penalties before you can take possession of your vehicle.

Aaand its done! People did their job. The owner received their vehicle or maybe even located a stolen one. All without civil forfeiture which steals the property of legal owners with no cause and then sells it to profit the PPD.

You'd have tow trucks taking the plates off of parked cars just to be able to tow them.

That's fair. I thought you were against removal of the vehicle; we're on the same page.

Ah cool good. Civil forfeiture is completely different and it wasn't long ago that we put a stop to it here.

Yep.

This would be a hell of a populist idea for a mayoral candidate.

That’s not really true, they touch cars all the time while putting tickets on them

Don’t forget the paper plates, which are usually expired already.

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You can’t ticket then tow a car if you don’t have a plate or at least a VIN.

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Hey now, the cops are all sad because their wives have grown tired of the beatings and started fucking people with respectable jobs.

I probably see one every other day or so

When I worked as a mechanic in my teens in west philly my boss had me to do this to park customer cars on the street to not get tickets, and nothing happened. Apparently ppa and the cops couldn’t do anything about it without a vin.

Today I just take my plate off and block my vin on my daily beater because I don’t want parking tickets. Otherwise it is registered, insured, inspections up to date. I’ve never gotten one nor have been towed and I park in a ppa zone. My weekend car, off-road truck, and motorcycles are in the garage so the plates stay on those. There really is zero enforcement of this. Plenty of other cars with visible plates to cite instead of wasting all this time on one without it.

Also can anyone show me where in the city code does it say they can tow away cars with vins blocked? If they could they would remove half the cars in south and west philly.

I thought you'd suggest 4k on every dashboard 🤔

Ahhh, but if you were allowed to just tow without the ticket...

This is everywhere all over the country now.

So why would you be getting parking tickets if everything is legit and you’re not parked like a DH ? you don’t actually have to answer.

Lots of people probably avoid major camera-heavy state owned highways to lower risk and less footage

Driving the cars with blurred/no tags.

Not paying the meter.

I really only do this when I'm up in Kensington cutting cable lines

Geneva conventions say gassing enemy soldiers or civilians is illegal but you can bet your ass PPD found a way to bend the rules back in 2020.

Understandable.

Report it as having missing inspection stickers.

Was with someone that slid into the bumper of a parked car on an icy night in West Philly last year. Stopped a passing police cruiser so we could contact the owner of the car. Cops ran the plates. They told us the plates didn't match the description of the car and the VIN was ground off. Told us the car was definitely stolen, have a good night, and drove off. The car is still there. Thanks PPD.

Nothing like seeing a car drive down the street with super tinted windows, tinted windshield, riddled with battle scars, and a paper license plate from New Jersey

Dude City Council asked for this with their shitty car equality bullshit

There’s absolutely been a noticeable uptick in these covered plates over the last several months. And honestly I don’t understand how this isn’t just free money for the PPA/PPD. Ticket every car with a covered plate several hundred dollars, and if they don’t remove it in say 7 days and get caught again it’s a several thousand dollar fine and a lost license for 30 days or whatever. The only reason anyone would have their plates covered is so that they can get away with driving recklessly.

No, it still requires clearly visible plates.

> VIN number

quietly seethes

100% a lie. There are two people on my block who do this. I told the PPA guy I could even tell them the license plate number (it was sitting upside down on the seat) and they still wouldn't do anything. They said he wouldn't even bother because he couldn't take a picture of it.

I can't even blame the drivers. Why would I pay for permit parking when it's this easy to get around it and I can park wherever I want?

The permit parking is whatever, I guess (although it's annoying), but people are doing this to park in bus loading zones, crosswalks, sidewalks, bike lanes or wherever. That stuff is dangerous and it seems no one in charge seems to care about our safety.

This infuriates me more than it should.

Re-read the law.

Nothing in it prevents cops from pulling people over for obscured or lack of plates.

Cops just simply refuse to do their jobs.

saw a guy last week get out of his car and take his plate off after parking. have seen a camry in my neighborhood completely missing it’s front bumper, with “waiting on tags” written on white paper. shit makes my blood boil.

you have have kids using ghost vehicles and fake temp tags to commit crimes and fucking murders.

none of these cars should be on the street without proper plates. i wish there was an app like there is in NYC for ticketing, but it’s able to identify fake tags and report a car without a plate and it gets towed the same day.

i wish PPA and PPD actually did something about this shit smh

Why not? If the car has no plates then it isn't authorized to be on the roads!

Apropos of this, this guys in New York is a legend: https://twitter.com/gershkuntzman/status/1630547835631353857

While we’re at it, it’s time to require front plates

We're almost at the point where it would be more beneficial to report on city agencies that are functioning correctly. Although we would haven't have much to read about honestly...

Yeah, but his schtick is removing obstructions that are pretending to be benign. The assholes are significantly more blatant here.

Sir, what is your vehicle identification number number?

Sidenote: I pay for an annual parking pass for my block. The PPA makes it such a pain in the ass to get a temp pass, when I had a rental last year it was easier for me to just remove the plate and cover the VIN. Drove around the city for 3 weeks in a Mercedes with no plates, in front of several cops, and didn’t encounter an issue once.

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> Let the towing companies seize obscured/no plate cars from the street.

You really want to give perverse incentives to the towing companies?

Delicious irony: just walked past a car on the 1700 block of Moore with a dark license plate cover. It was a FOP license plate.

It would be significantly better than what we have now.

You'll see that a ton. It goes well with several digits being obscured by an FOP sticker.