I'm glad the cyclist did something to raise awareness. Roads are a shared space with shared responsibilities. Valid, visible licenses plates are fundamental to public accountability for drivers of automobiles. They are there for everyone to see. There is no way that driver should be able to get away with obscuring his license plate, and I think the cyclist was within his rights to uncover the obscured license plate.

In this particular case I agree with you. But how would you write this into a law that citizens and police can reference to determine whether a particular action is ok or not?

"License plates are the property of the state and must be visible, unobscured, and attached only to the vehicle to which it is registered."

If the issue is a person removing a piece of tape covering a license plate, then really nothing happened. The citizen unobscured state property which is supposed to be visible. It would be like removing a sticker from a speed limit sign, or picking up litter.

If it's some other piece of plastic attached to the car itself, well IMO that's what courts are for. That cyclist goes before a judge and maybe some technical reading of the law interprets what he did as tampering with the vehicle. Another completely reasonable interpretation though is that the cyclist was making the shared roadway that the car was on safer for everyone else.

The police weren't justified in charging him for criminal mischief and I bet you it will get dismissed, and he'll win on a false arrest claim as well. Those should be starting points for your analysis.

> it does seem like the cyclist should have reported the driver to the police rather than taking the law into their own hands

You mean like with the license plate number?

> I'm a social ignoramus so wondering: is the cyclist in this case being a "Karen"?

No, I'd say it's more of an act of civil disobedience meant to draw attention to the casually corrupt practices of the NYPD. The driver is likely affiliated with government or the police department. Officers have been found doing it themselves.

> I'd say it's more of an act of civil disobedience meant to draw attention to the casually corrupt practices of the NYPD.

Didn't the driver call the police though?

Ahh, good point. The act itself I think was still civil disobedience, but the intent directed at the driver. Cyclist had more faith in the police than was justified.

Yeah, and the NYPD came and responded to him because he was most likely family of a cop. Do you seriously think if you called in one of these, the cops would respond? Let alone right away? They don't respond right away for actual road incidents, let alone something like this. And then their response when they showed up? That seemed proper to you?

Let me go throw paint on paintings to show my act of civil disobedience against oil companies.

> taking the law into their own hands

Story says cyclist is a lawyer, so this was just job research.

And how are you going to report them if you can't read the plate?

Using the VIN number perhaps.