[woodruffw]

This is the crux of it: NYC's finest make up a disproportionate fraction of license plate forgery and defacement cases. Enforcement cannot occur, because to enforce these laws would be to ticket and fine their own (or their owns' families).

[bigger_inside]

old insight though: some of the best anti-police-advice comes from cops, to their families and kids. They know what the police actually have access to, and what they actually do with it, and they have no patience for that happening to THEM and their families. but of course, they have that convenient citizen/criminal distinction cutout thought process to view the world through, which makes it okay to subject "unknown others" to it, who are "criminals" if they come into the purview of police and thus deserve this.