Madison County clerk urges residents to destroy expired license plates to avoid toll and enforcement charges

Mike Kevel, Madison County Clerk, urged residents to destroy expired license plates to prevent misuse and potential toll or enforcement charges. He said that when registrations are surrendered early the DMV staff "cut the plates" and destroy them, and that owners receive a receipt to show insurers.

Kevel warned of the practical risk when residents keep expired plates at home. "If somebody sees those plates and swipes them, you know we live in a world where that's happening, somebody grabs those plates and throws them on their vehicle and then speeds through a construction zone or a school zone or runs a red light or gets on the New York State Thruway or crosses 1 of the bridges that has a toll, you're going to get charged with that toll 100% of the time," he said. He added that owners who keep plates risk being charged for tolls or fines that result from someone else's use of the plates.

To avoid that outcome, Kevel advised residents to render old plates unreadable — "Mark them with a permanent marker so they can't be read and used. Cut them yourself and throw them away a scrap." He also said residents could take plates to a DMV office for destruction: "Push comes to shove, bring them into a DMV office, we'll destroy them for you." Kevel cited a recent local example: "We just had somebody have plates stolen out of their barn, and now they're looking at a lot of fees for those plate reading situations." He closed by asking residents to share the guidance with friends and family and to "protect one another."