Out-of-state license plates, part 2

A Count on 8 into the explosion of cars and trucks here in New Haven sporting out-of-state license plates from places like Pennsylvania is certainly raising eyebrows. The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles tells us it's now reviewing the situation and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is launching an investigation.

By the looks of it, the Fair Haven section of New Haven is a favorite spot for people from Pennsylvania. It's hard to go a block without seeing a car or truck without Pennsylvania plates.

Of course, New Haven Police said tourism has nothing to do with it. It's a matter of money.

"I think there are a lot of people out there who so for loopholes in the law to evade property taxes and try to evade insurance," said Lt. Joseph Witkowski, New Haven Police Department.

Pennsylvania has privatized it's automobile registration process. So called "tag agents" handle the job, and according to an investigative report done by New York State - which also has a huge problem with vehicles sporting Pennsylvania plates - many of those private tag agents don't verify the person registering the vehicle actually is who they say they are.

The result, people living in New Haven, New York and elsewhere can avoid paying property taxes and insurance.

"Yes we have [notified authorities in Pennsylvania]," said Witkowski. We haven't gotten a response from Pennsylvania."

The obvious question is if it's been known for years that this privatized system is resulting in massive fraud and huge problems in places like New Haven, why don't our friends in Pennsylvania do something about it.

The New Haven Police haven't gotten answers so News Channel 8 put the question to authorities at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation ourselves.

"Well, first of all we do appreciate your forwarding to us this information," said Danielle Klinger, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. "I can tell you that as soon as we received that information we began an active investigation into all of that."

Klinger says Pennsylvania attempted to tighten up it's procedures to prevent the very thing we discovered here in New Haven after authorities in New York complained, but that the News Channel 8 investigation may well have uncovered problems that haven't been fixed yet.

"If through this investigation we identify maybe there's a gap somewhere what we will do is learn from that and we will look to possibly change a policy or a procedure if necessary as a result of this investigation."

Back here in New Haven, while police say motorists driving with phony insurance cards and fraudulently obtained registrations are a public safety issue, the city is also loosing a huge amount of money because those with out-of-state plates aren't paying property taxes.

Yet police have not devoted resources to busting up whatever organized rings are out peddling out-of-state plates.

Police agreed that it is a manpower issue.

"From our side yes," Witkowski said. "We're very busy in the city we have a lot of things going on that we're trying to address so we haven't been able to sit down and do an in depth investigation from start to finish."

But now, it's not only Pennsylvania authorities who are re-examining their procedures as a result of our investigation. Also are New Haven Police, said Chief James Lewis.

"When this came to my attention, that was one of the questions I asked: Do we have a method in place when we do seize these cars that we notify the tax collector?" asked New Haven Police Chief Lewis. "It doesn't appear that exists, so that will exist in the very near future. We may not have done a very good job tracking the property tax issue."