DOVER, Del.- Black tags in Delaware are a status symbol of sorts — not everyone can put one on their vehicle and people will spend thousands of dollars just to purchase a license plate number low enough for monochrome, street legal replica.
But Patrick Jones of Felton, whose family has collected antique-style license plates for their cars, said he often finds himself sharing the road with drivers who have knockoff black-and-white tags.
"Mine's legit so when I see ones riding down the road that aren't...It kind of disturbs me," he said.
Jones isn't alone.
There are so many Delaware drivers fed up with seeing illegitimate black-and-white tags share pictures of license plates they say are unauthorized in a group called "Fake and Interesting Delaware Tags" on Facebook.
"People take their plates seriously," said Jordan Izrabal, a Delawarean attempting to photograph the 3,000 lowest-number license plates available in the state. He also started a petition asking Delaware to enforce existing laws on illegal license plates more aggressively.
Some Delaware leaders have said the current penalties for driving with an illegal license plate are too low, with violators facing fines between $25 to $50.
State Rep. Ruth Briggs King (R-Georgetown) said she has had conversations with leaders in the Delaware Department of Transportation about exploring legislative options, including heightened penalties for people who display unauthorized black tags.
"The big deal is let's have this discussion. You hear from people who say, 'It's not lawful.' It's not, how it should be?" she said.
Only one company, the Delaware Historic Plate Company, is authorized by the state to create black-and-white replicas of license plates that can be placed on cars.
The state only allows black-and-white license plates, in either the porcelain or stainless steel format, to be displayed on cars with numbers that were available in the years those license plates were issued by the state, prior to the current blue-and-yellow tags.
