HARRIS COUNTY – There is no shortage of paper tags on Texas roads.
They’re supposed to serve as temporary registrations, but the problem is not all of them are legit.
Law enforcement officials say many of the tags are fake and were created as a way to avoid paying tolls.
”It’s unfair because tolls are expensive, so the fact that I gotta pay every month and then people aren’t paying, it’s a little bit unfair,” said driver, Ronald McGriff.
Officials said other people use fake tags as a way to get out of having to register a vehicle that won’t pass inspection, or worse, attempt to commit crimes anonymously.
”We always are looking for fraudulent temp tags,” said Pct. 5 Sgt. Alejandro Gonzalez.
Harris County Toll Road officials said between Jan. 1 and Nov. 4 of 2021, nearly 350,000 vehicles traveled through the HCTRA system with paper plates that couldn’t be associated with an owner.
Starting on Jan. 15, law enforcement officers will be cracking down with a new effort.
A two-week initiative called “Tag! You’re It” will have an increased amount of deputy constables all throughout Harris County scanning toll roads for fake tags.
”The ones that don’t come back to anything or come back to a different vehicle, those are the ones that are being stopped,” Gonzalez said.
Officials said the ramped-up efforts will increase public safety, and some drivers say they already feel safer.
”Living somewhere, working somewhere, I would prefer to know that the cars in the garage where I live are for people who are, again, law-abiding citizens,” said driver Dillon Sorensen.
Toll road deputies said they have issued more than 2,100 citations and made 110 arrests combating fraudulent registration plates since last April.