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ROCHESTER, N.Y. — News10NBC is pushing for solutions after local people with special county license plates got charged hundreds of dollars after state police cars went through E-ZPass in New York City.

“The fact that a Brighton resident, the fact that a Rochester resident is getting charged for something in New York City is ridiculous,” said Sen. Jeremy Cooney, chair of the Transportation Committee.

Chief Investigative Reporter Berkeley Brean got his questions to the head of transportation in the state Senate.

We know why this is happening. Some state police cars in New York City have the identical license plate to former Monroe County employees.

For instance, the trooper car in an E-ZPass ticket charged to a local person shows a license plate of 1M24. That’s the same plate as the 79-year-old aunt of Lauren McGuire in Rochester.
1-M plates were specialized plates for people who worked for Monroe County. But when that state police car went through the E-ZPass section of Manhattan, the bills went to McGuire’s aunt and reached $500.

“I know they have a database that they catch duplicate plates,” said Lauren McGuire, whose aunt gets E-ZPass charges because of a duplicate NYSP license plate. “And that means no one is looking at the tickets in comparison to the database. Because they could clearly see this state police car is not a little white Acura.”

E-ZPass in New York City is operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Wednesday, the MTA said it is reversing all the charges against McGuire’s aunt.

McGuire’s aunt is now the fifth person with a 1M license plate that got hit with E-ZPass charges from New York City.
We just learned of a new 1M license plate owner in Mendon who says he’s been charged $600 in E-ZPass fees since 2023. He says E-ZPass has refunded roughly half of the charges but none since last October.
He says E-ZPass told him the charges were generated when a state police car with the duplicate license plate drove into Manhattan.

This is why Berkeley questioned the chair of Senate Transportation.

Berkeley Brean, News10NBC: “You sent a letter to the State Police, the DMV, and the MTA. What is it that you asked of them?”

Sen. Jeremy Cooney: “As the chair of transportation, I want to get to the bottom of it. So I reached out to all the interested parties to say let’s talk about it and let’s find a solution going forward. We can’t have this keep happening. And we have spoken directly to the DMV. We understand the Department of Motor Vehicles is the responsible agency which issues these license plates, which is then triggering the camera enforcement incorrectly.”

Berkeley Brean: “How quickly can we get this done so that it doesn’t happen to someone today or tomorrow or whenever?”

Sen. Cooney: “It needs to happen immediately. The number one issue New Yorkers are facing right now is affordability. So now you’re asking people here in Rochester to foot the bill for people in New York City? That’s ridiculous. It needs to be fixed. Right now we know there’s only a handful of State Police vehicles that are having this conflict with license plates. So it seems permissible in my mind that we can get this figured out this week.”

So far this is a problem with state police cars in New York City and license plates in Monroe County.
Here’s why.

At the state police barracks on Scottsville Road, the trooper cars have license plates with the letter “E” which indicates they’re in Troop E. In Manhattan the trooper cars have the letter “M.” And when they go through the E-ZPass cameras in the city, the system reads the 1M license plate. But then the system is charging some car owners that have 1M plates here.

The state police want New York City to stop charging state police cars in Manhattan. They’re exempt statewide.

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