A North Texas police chief is seeking to permanently do away with paper license tags.
Grand Prairie Police Chief Daniel Scesney told CBS News that the problem with paper license plates has to do with their ability to be replicated easily.
The police chief demonstrated how easy it is to make these tags with Grand Prairie Police Department (GPPD) public information officer Mark Beseda.
“You can see just how simple this is,” said Scesney, per CBS News.
The police chief pointed out that the public information officer could make one using only software that is widely available to the public.
The sale of these fraudulent tags has become a multimillion-dollar criminal industry, according to NBC 5.
The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has also identified the issue of replicating these tags. The agency recently had to overhaul the design of paper tags to boost security features and reduce fraud, as reported by The Dallas Express.
The agency made this move after significant pressure from lawmakers to remedy the issue.
The DMV told CBS News in a statement that it does not have the authority to change the existing process.
“Current state law requires dealers to issue a buyer’s temporary tag at the time of sale. Any change to that process would require legislative action and is not something the department could act on without statutory authority,” said the agency in the statement.
State Rep. Craig Goldman (R-Fort Worth) has drafted legislation to address fraudulent tags. This bill, if enacted, would effectively eliminate paper tags, with the DMV adopting and implementing changes no later than March 2024.
The bill has Chief Scesney’s support. According to CBS News, he has made multiple trips to the state Capitol to lobby lawmakers for its passage.
GPPD is not the only police department experiencing issues due to fraudulent license plates. The Dallas Police Department seized 42 eTags and issued 49 citations in an operation carried out on January 19, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The ongoing issue of phony tags in Dallas serves as a reminder of the unrelenting wave of property crimes and street violence that the city council has been unable to stop for years.
The DMV said that it remains committed to reducing these crimes.
I like it. Fake tags probably mean no insurance either. If the tag is fraudulent, then impound the car.
California did this a while ago. What Texas needs to crack down on is the non insured and incompitent motorists. My insurance went up at policey renewal because it’s the highest claim state. The accidents I see almost daily, I can’t even play out in my head to figure out how the they even happened. What are people doing on the road?
California outlawed paper tags and the organized criminals who sell them simply moved to Texas!
Surely you have spell check on your computers….Decommision??? Where’s the second “s”
I followed a car in Frisco in December that had a paper tag with a Feb 2022 expiration date. It was not a new car. I think it was a European car AND in a very nice neighborhood.
Nice neighborhood, means white neighborhood,STILL HAS CRIMES, I LOVE IT.
How about not requiring a plate at all? If you are worried about losing tax revenue simply add a hefty sales tax to the cost of new tires to make up for the loss.
Does the law specify the temporary tags must be paper? If not seems it would be easy enough to remedy by issuing the valid temp tags in metal form like real plates or another media that is not so easily reproduced
Will the elimination of paper tags, raise the theft of metal tags? Of course it will.
Paper tags have always been an issue, but the problem has exploded within the past 5 years and is now totally out of control. I’ve also seen many cars lately that have no front or rear tags at all. People are now thumbing their noses at the laws that the rest of us legal citizens are obliged to follow. It has become a primary income source for hundreds if not thousands of people who sell them. And organized crime and the drug cartels are also deeply involved. We ought to fund a dedicated police force whose sole job is to look for and pull over every single car that is missing front and/or rear tags and all vehicles with paper tags. Vehicles that are missing all tags and vehicles that are found to have stolen or fraudulent paper tags are seized and immediately forfeited on the spot before being towed away.
Why need “temporary paper tags” at all. Why can’t they just not deliver the vehicle until after the metal tags arrive?
I see this expired / fake tags all the time. Not just in Dallas. Is there someplace to report these if you see them? Would anyone bother to follow up on them?