Helpfully for the public, the Suffolk County Police Department has chosen to join the state’s interagency task force to get "ghost vehicles" off the street. The sting operations conducted by the task force are another law enforcement tool that can make our roads safer.

The number of participating agencies now totals 14, and even includes the state’s smaller Department of Environmental Conservation force with about 300 officers. The Nassau County Police Department is already part of the operation. 

The task force was formed with the advent of electronic tolls on vehicles entering Manhattan on which Metropolitan Transportation Authority capital repairs now depend in part. Crackdowns nab motorists who deliberately drive without machine-readable license plates, the technology on which toll collection increasingly depends. Some plates are deliberately obscured, covered with semitransparent plastic, or have letters and numbers chipped to confound the system. Some are even counterfeit, tracing back to nonexistent out-of-state registrations or phony dealer plates — just right for those, say, fleeing crime scenes in any county.

At first, Suffolk officials appeared reticent to join the state effort, noting that their county does not host any MTA crossings where millions of dollars in tolls are evaded every year. Nor does the county any longer have a red-light camera program. But Suffolk ultimately decided to make the right choice and participate as a matter of traffic safety.

As Cathy Sheridan, president of MTA Bridges and Tunnels, said, "This is a regional problem, not just a five boroughs problem." Thousands of drivers who may not be Manhattan-bound use the Triborough, Throgs Neck, Whitestone and Verrazzano-Narrows bridges for access to New Jersey and upstate, for example.

Ghost vehicles have blossomed as a public safety issue like other legal transgressions such as speeding, recklessness, road rage, driving under the influence, and distracted driving — all of them together demanding stepped-up enforcement. "Over the past year, the NYPD has taken thousands of illegal ghost plates off the streets, which are often connected to larger crimes," NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in April.

The city is also enforcing rules, introduced in January, that are well worth notice among Long Islanders. Plates must be securely fastened and easily readable at 12 to 48 inches off the ground where possible. Coatings and reflective substances are no-nos punishable by fines, as is obscuring registration stickers.

The so-called broken windows theory, which is decades old and has influenced professional policing, suggests that even minor civic disorder and rule-flouting require attention. Letting seemingly small offenses slide creates an atmosphere conducive to wrongful behavior. Dangerous vehicular roadways nowadays seem to need this kind of focus.

As with any other working group, the state ghost-plate task force should be closely watched for results, in this case by elected executives and lawmakers and, above all, the public. The demand that our roads be safer includes each of us.

are experienced journalists who offer reasoned opinions, based on facts, to encourage informed debate about the issues facing our community.