By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams recently announced a new interagency task force that will help remove illegal “ghost cars” — cars that are virtually untraceable by traffic cameras and toll readers because of their forged or altered license plates — from parking spaces on city streets.
The task force, which features 15 uniformed members of service of the City Police Department assigned strictly to parked ghost car removal under the direction of the City Department of Sanitation, began regular operations on Sept. 10, and over the first five nights of operations alone removed 295 ghost cars, freeing up space for New Yorkers who follow safety and regulatory requirements.
“The era of the free ride is over,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi.
Current city and state enforcement efforts against ghost cars — which have been used in everything from hit-and-run collisions to robberies and shootings — focus on enforcing against these automobiles while in motion, on the streets, or at toll plazas. This new task force will apply interagency best practices to the rest of the day, when these unregistered, uninsured, or stolen vehicles are parked. This mirrors a prior interagency collaboration between the NYPD and DSNY on a related issue — removing abandoned and derelict vehicles from streets. In the first year of that effort, the Abandoned Vehicle Task Force — structured similarly, with NYPD officers detailed to DSNY — the number of vehicles removed from city streets by DSNY more than doubled.
The vehicles seized by this task force will be held at NYPD lots where they will be processed and either claimed, auctioned, or destroyed after all investigations are complete.
“Red light and speed cameras save lives and keep New Yorkers safe. Drivers that use forged, obstructed, or altered plates to cheat the system put all of us at risk,” said City Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. “Getting ghost cars off our streets improves the lives of hard-working New Yorkers who follow the rules. We thank Mayor Adams, DSNY, NYPD, and our sister agencies for all their work to get these vehicles off the roads.”
Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar (D-Woodhaven) added, “Today, we are going full throttle to rid our city of the pervasive ‘ghost cars.’ There have been over 20,000 complaints of phony paper plates since their advent during the pandemic. Drivers of these untraceable cars are using these plates to commit crimes, cover up stolen vehicles, evade their fair share of tolls, and violate traffic laws with impunity. Presumably none of them are carrying insurance, spelling disaster if they are in an accident. This partnership between the NYPD and DSNY, with 15 law enforcement officers devoted exclusively to ghost car removal, will accelerate enforcement to get these dangerous cars off our streets. We have already made incredible progress, removing 295 ghost cars in five days. I am working at the state level to give the city even more enforcement tools, including empowering law enforcement to use VINs to issue summonses when there is a phony plate. Together, we will be the exorcist that banishes the ghost cars haunting New York City.”
