And sometimes the reporting and the Twitter feed collide, as in Monday's dispatch (12/19) about Mr. Kuntzman's efforts to embarrass the legions of license plate obscurers who roam and park on the City's streets.
If nothing else, Mr. Kuntzman has old-fashioned Moxie for making videos of himself uncrumpling license plates, or filling back in the obscured characters that have been purposely defaced to avoid enforcement cameras and E-Z Pass readers.
One such photo taken by a NYT photographer, Hilary Swift, shows the dexterity of the bicycle riding Mr. Kuntzman who with his left hand is restoring the lettering as if he were a sign painter filling in gold leaf lettering on a frosted glass door in a 1940s movie, while taking a video of himself doing the job with his right hand, all the while talking. Gersh can do more than walk and chew gum at the same time.
when they demanded a discount from the Madam for their numbers. When they were repeatedly refused a discount for volume, they got angry and started smashing and busting up the joint. The Madam would have none of that, and called the police at the 109th Precinct, who responded. The paperwork on that one must have been monumental.
And then there once were a group of cops from the same precinct that were caught operating a chop shop within the precinct boundaries. What's done in the 109, stays in the 109.
As you might expect, even coming near the car of an owner can incite parked car rage. Mr. Kuntzman chooses to make sure there is no one around as he quickly removes the leaf that is so delicately obscuring a letter or number, or apply some old fashioned elbow grease to uncrumple a plate.
No doubt Mr. Kunztman's efforts do not have the same effect as a more official summons, or fine, they are filmed to make a point. He even summarizes the violations that a plate has racked up by using a Twitter bot "How's My Driving" (@HowsMyDrivingNY) that with a simple query can read back to you the accumulations of violations associated with that plate. It's accurate, because I queried the family car and found the two minor fines that we did receive over the years, all paid.
As you would expect, there can be autos with thousands of dollars in uncollected fines. Mr. Kilgannon's piece outlines the $100 million black hole that exists for evaded and uncollected fines.
Mr. Kuntzman's is not alone. There are many others who post bus and bike lane parkers as well. Mr. Kilgannon doesn't tell us what, if anything Mr. Kuntzman does for a living, but he does tell us there might be a bounty in store for the people who point out scofflaws. If so, it will pay far better than returning bottles for their deposits.
And it's not just a New York City happening. In the local shopping center in Nassau County I casually noticed a car that had the first two characters of its plate obscured.
Not all evasions are of course accomplished by plate alteration, and there are some doozies, like the front plate that can be flipped back by the owner, like the plates on an Aston Martin driven by James Bond. Amazon.com is full of equipment for sale that can help you obscure your plate.
And certainly not all drivers are doing this. Today my wife and I completed around trip to Freehold cemetery to put down wreaths and a grave blanket. From Nassau county this involves using toll roads and bridges. In fact, it is nearly impossible, to leave Long Island through Brooklyn or Queens and not pay a toll. Today's drive, 76 miles in one direction, using a round trip on the Verrazano, a round trip on the Outerbridge, and a toll in each direction on the Garden State Parkway will diminish the E-Z Pass account something near $27. By tonight I'll get a notice that the account as been automatically replenished. (It doesn't feel like real money then, does it? I once worked in Georgia for a bit and my boss told me there was one toll in the entire state!)
On today's trip I purposely paid even closer attention to license plates than usual. I always look for the vanity plate that is sending a message of some kind, or I unscramble the letters and see if they spell anything. (A lack of vowels hampers this.) The best vanity plate I ever say was on the Thruway going to Vermont or Saratoga years ago on a red convertible sports car with the top down driven by a young blonde woman that proudly proclaimed: DAD PAID. (Whatta a guy!)
I have to say on the entire trip through toll road city today I didn't spot one obscured plate. Plate obscuring doesn't need to occur on highways for it to exist. There are so many speed cameras near school zones and red lights within the boroughs and the suburbs that there is great incentive to obscure your plate if you want to preserve your way of driving.
Just wait for congestion pricing to take hold in Midtown in Manhattan. That ought to produce the biggest free-for-all of all.
My favorite possibility is that they'll invoke congestion pricing on sidewalks and try and score beaucoup bucks as people flood Midtown to see the Rockefeller tree and Broadway shows.
There is nothing in New York you can't be made to pay for.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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