MTA seizes 44 cars for unpaid tolls, including Range Rover that owed $52,000
MTA chairman Janno Lieber with license plates of toll violators whose cars were towed and impounded at the MTA facility on Staten Island on Friday. Credit: Ed Quinn
During a four-day enforcement crackdown, the MTA seized 44 cars belonging to persistent scofflaws who racked up nearly $1 million in unpaid tolls and fees, officials announced Friday.
The collection of vehicles, ranging from a black Range Rover owing more than $52,000 in tolls and fines to a Mercedes and a private sanitation truck, were stripped of their plates and sitting in a parking lot under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the crossing targeted for enhanced enforcement earlier this week.
While announcing the recent blitz at a facility lot near the bridge, Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said repeat offenders can face stiffer penalties than just a summons: Vehicles can be towed and drivers with fake plates face arrest.
“This is about fundamental fairness. It's not right when drivers, some rolling around in Mercedes and Porsches, come onto our bridges and through tunnels and skip out on paying thousands of dollars in tolls,” Lieber said. “That is your money they're taking; that's the public's money and New Yorkers are not going to put up with it.”
By July, the agency exceeded the total number of vehicles it had pulled over in all of 2022.
Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 13, MTA Bridge and Tunnel officers stopped 2,705 vehicles — topping the 1,880 vehicles that were interdicted in all of 2022, officials added in release.
“These enforcement measures are designed to level the playing field so that toll violators are held accountable and pay their fair share,” said MTA Bridges and Tunnels vice president and chief of operations Richard L. Hildebrand II.
On Friday morning, the agency provided video of a law enforcement vehicle pulling over an Audi SUV as it attempted to cruise across the Staten Island bridge with a case obscuring its license plate.
Obstructing a license plate, whether with paint, a clear cover or any other device, is a violation of state traffic laws and results in a fine between $50 and $300. Driving with a fraudulent plate is illegal and results in an arrest.
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Newsday Live Author Series: Bobby Flay Newsday Live and Long Island LitFest present a conversation with Emmy-winning host, professional chef, restaurateur and author Bobby Flay. Newsday food reporter and critic Erica Marcus hosts a discussion about the chef's life, four-decade career and new cookbook, "Bobby Flay: Chapter One."
