NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WIVB) – The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles is auditing county-run DMV offices across the state as investigators try to determine how surrendered license plates — or their plate numbers — are ending up back on the road, triggering tolls and tickets for drivers who believed their plates had been destroyed.
The audits follow News 4’s months of reporting on cases where New Yorkers who turned in their plates later received erroneous toll bills, parking tickets, and even speeding violations tied to plates they no longer owned. In some cases, the surprise bills arrived years after the plates were surrendered.
Niagara County’s DMV offices in Niagara Falls, North Tonawanda, and Lockport are among the locations recently visited by the DMV’s Division of Field Investigation. Auditors examined how surrendered plates are collected, secured, stored, and ultimately destroyed…