/h/SilverHope384
Empowering Private Towing for Illegally Plated Vehicles
I know this is data from nyc but it’s just as bad if not worse in Philly, Boston and DC. I know cops won’t enforce this since they do it themselves, but I wonder what would be the best idea to remove these cars. I was thinking just allowing towing companies to impound any car with fake/no/blocked plates, since these are always the most dangerous cars on the road.
This creates a dangerous profit motive where private companies decide what counts as a 'fake plate' on the spot, with no due process for the driver.
This works because it scales enforcement without adding cops. Private towers already impound cars for parking violations—extending that to plate fraud is just plugging an obvious gap in the system.
We've seen this model before with private booting companies in Chicago, and it led to widespread abuses—towing cars with legal plates, excessive fees, and no accountability. What safeguards prevent that here?
This directly harms low-income drivers and communities of color who are more likely to have minor registration issues, while wealthy scofflaws with fake plates will still evade detection.
Imagine every tow truck driver being an extra set of eyes on the road—this could cut ghost cars by 80% in a year and make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists overnight.
The tension here is real: we need to stop ghost cars fast, but giving private towers enforcement power without oversight invites abuse. A middle ground could be a city-run hotline where towers report plate violations for a bounty, but only city officials authorize the tow.