Senior Citizen Contends that Star Trek License Plates Resulted in Thousands of Dollars in Speeding Fines
Senior Citizen Contends that Star Trek License Plates Resulted in Thousands of Dollars in Speeding Fines
If you checked Beda Koorey's license plate, a 76-year-old resident from Long Island, you'd believe she's both the most traveled and reckless driver across the nation. According to CBS News, she's amassed thousands of dollars worth of traffic fines from various locations in the United States.
There's a catch, though. Koorey hasn't driven in four years. She doesn't even own a vehicle. Those license plates that keep racking up citations? She surrendered them years ago. So, what's causing the confusion?
During her driving days, Koorey had a custom license plate that saluted her favorite show, Star Trek. She managed to secure the number NCC-1701, which was the registry identifier for the Starship Enterprise in the original Star Trek series.
To get this ID on a Constitution-class starship, you need to go through the United Federation of Planets. To get it on a car in New York like Koorey did, you'd pay $31.25 yearly to renew the custom plates. Alternatively, for just $15 on Amazon, you can buy novelty plates that bear the NCC-1701 identifier, contributing to Koorey's ongoing harassment.
It appears that people buy these novelty plates, often as a fun reference, and use them on their vehicles. When they commit a traffic violation, the plates get flagged and eventually trace back to Koorey, the original owner of the NCC-1701 plates. This leads to fines sent to her address.
Koorey has been fined for a variety of offenses, including speeding, parking violations, and running red lights. She frequently receives E-ZPass toll fees when the license plate scanners detect the NCC-1701 plates. "I got a phone call from Ohio, a police chief searching for plates involved in a robbery," she shared with CBS.
At this point, Koorey has been issued tens of thousands of dollars in fines, all unjustly, as she doesn't drive. However, she's still technically liable for these tickets, which persistently end up in her mailbox. Koorey spends more time than necessary dealing with various summons and trying to resolve the confusion.
The New York Department of Motor Vehicles seems unable to resolve the issue. The agency informed CBS that there's no connection between Koreey and the plates in their state system, as she relinquished them years ago. The problem seems to stem from other states. Each state's DMV is accountable for ensuring they operate with the latest data from other states. The fact that Koorey is still being fined suggests that many states are working with databases that are at least four years outdated.
Part of the issue might be that DMVs are lagging when it comes to information sharing. Wisconsin became the first state in the country to make non-commercial driver information available electronically to other states, but that only happened in 2022.
Regardless of the cause, here's a straightforward plea: leave Beda Koorey alone already. Escaping the DMV's clutches should not be Koorey's last challenge.
The rising trend of buying and using Star Trek-inspired novelty plates, like NCC-1701, contributes to the ongoing confusion, as Koorey's old license plate number is frequently used by other drivers. In the future, advances in technology and improved information sharing between DMVs could potentially prevent such mix-ups.