I'm on vacation in the US atm and traffic is wild.

The worst drivers in Europe would be better than the best drivers here.

Everyone is constantly going 10-20 mph over the speed limit. You constantly get cut off and sometimes even pushed out of your lane. You can have your blinker on all you want, no one is ever letting you merge unlees you force your way in and yadda yadda yadda.

In the >6000 miles I've driven now I have seen one automated speed camera. There is a larger police presence than in the EU but they don't seem much interested in enforcing traffic laws.

To any US citizen reading this: This is not meant to be rude, but you guys could have it way better and way more safe than it is currently.

lol we don’t have oversight on our cops (I mean, technically we do. The FBI and internal affairs are supposed to be a counterbalance to cops’ power, but that is absolutely not how it works in reality). And I’d be willing to bet at least 60% of the license plates in this video belonged to cops. It’s wild. In nyc, walk but any precinct and all the personal cars you see are very likely to have some fuckery like this with their plates.

The move, especially in this city, to speed cameras and red light cams etc has allowed the cops to not have to pay attention. They get paid more than ever to do way less work. They’re sent to stand on subway platforms on their phones and hide by turnstiles trying to catch people jumping them and skipping the $2.90 fare.

I think as a German you’d be disgusted the way things actually work here

The law exist its just up to local law enforcement to enforce it. Usually it gets caught when some one gets pulled over as a +1 on the infractions.

The vast majority are police personal vehicles and police family member's vehicles

NYPD are the biggest offenders when it comes to NY license plate obstruction.

Flock's cameras actually do detect that kind of thing. Quoting from this article:

"Instantly searchable data, including plate numbers or missing/covered plates, as well as vehicle make, model, color, alterations, and other unique identifying information."

The problem is that randomly deploying cops to given areas to track down cars that are already long gone because their plates are obscured isn't terribly effective or worthwhile. It's more often used as part of a wider investigation, where someone stopped later could also be identified for having previously covered their plates, and fined accordingly on top of the fine for, say, speeding.