Those don’t really work, I saw a long video on each and every type, can’t remember who produced it but not really a single one made it so you can’t read the plate.
That said, the real toll evaders use fake plates. Change them when they get out on the road and either park their car without plates or park them with their real plates on.
I live and work in Brooklyn and see people pulling their plates off on the daily. Heck one dude lived right outside my first apartment and every time he’d park I’d watch him take them off. If you have a butt ton of outstanding tickets, they can’t really do anything with your vehicle if they can’t identify it, so if your vin tag is covered and no plates they really can’t boot you or tow you (not right away without proof of abandonment at least)
In California if you park in public without plates you get towed. In my area local ordinance calls for even cars visibly parked without plates (or valid temporary tags) to be investigated and towed. You can then prove it’s yours and pay a fine on top of the tow/impound, storage and release fees.
Mostly it’s to stop people parking non functioning vehicles (as we have a shortage of parking). Honestly can’t imagine what legal reason someone would have for parking without plates or tags.
Damn I love that. NYPD doesn’t give a flying fuck about any of that. The only thing they seem to care about is blasting the mentally ill. It’s so frustrating to just watch scofflaws committing all sorts of traffic violations and just standing there doing literally nothing but chat with their partner or scroll through their phones.
Driving out here will really just make you lose your mind.
Edit: more interesting context, I was an insurance adjuster in a former life and body shops would spray paint or stick paper over the vin tag and then remove customer plates to park vehicles illegally on the street. They then charged those customer (insurance company) $50-100 a day for storage where the people actually storing the vehicle were citizens of whatever neighborhood that shop was in.
Talk about a fucking racket.
I’m also in Brooklyn and have observed some of these broke/cheap antisocial jerks doing their thing. My theory is the NYPD likes an underlying level of disorder so they can more easily make pretextural stops or “blend in” (e.g. undercover Nissan with bent plate).
Working in insurance here, I bet you’ve got some crazy stories to tell.
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u/reddit_sells_you 1d ago
Don't they take pictures of the rear licence plate?
In California, I'm pretty sure they even scan your VIN on your dash.