By Ned Minevitz
Before reading on, take five minutes to watch CBS Texas’s 2023 news story, The Ongoing Fight Against Ghost Cars in Texas, embedded below.
A valid registration and license plate shows that a motor vehicle is in compliance: it has undergone any required safety inspections and is covered by automobile insurance. This helps ensure other road users’ personal (as well as financial) safety. A “ghost car” is a motor vehicle with a counterfeit license plate designed to deceive other motorists and law enforcement into believing that the vehicle is in compliance. The reason ghost cars are particularly prevalent in Texas is that, as of today, Texas still permits temporary paper license plates (or “tags”) in certain situations, such as immediately following a car’s sale. Other states, such as New York, have even alerted local authorities to be on the lookout for fake Texas plates on their roads. Creating a fake temporary paper license plate is not complicated. They can be easily generated at home with nothing more than a black-and-white computer printer. What are Texas lawmakers doing to stop this alarming trend?
In 2021, in an attempt to prevent the use of legitimately created but unlawfully used temporary license plates, Texas limited the number of temporary plates vehicle dealers and converters could issue each year (H.B. 3927). But this did not address the use of counterfeit temporary plates. In 2023, Texas outlawed temporary paper license plates beginning July 1, 2025 (H.B. 718). This legislative act projects to result in a sharp decline in the number of ghost cars in Texas. It will be drastically more difficult to create a fake plate that appears legitimate to the naked eye. With fewer ghost cars, there should also be fewer complaints alleging a violation of Section 503.067 of the Transportation Code (“Unauthorized Reproduction, Purchase, Use, or Sale of Temporary Tags”) being filed in municipal court.
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