Star Trek fan keeps getting tickets because of old USS Enterprise license plate

A Star Trek fan from Long Island, New York, says she still receives traffic tickets for a car she stopped driving four years ago thanks to its USS Enterprise-inspired plates. 

Beda Koorey, 76, had a set of custom plates that matched those on Star Trek’s USS Enterprise: NCC-1701.

Four years ago, in 2020, Koorey sold her car and handed over the personalized plates. 

But today, she’s still being hit with tickets for the car she no longer owns and she thinks there’s an odd reason behind it. 

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The Star Trek fan receives traffic tickets from all over the US

It’s no secret that personalized license plates can be sold for huge sums of money. 

In 2018, a personalized Rolls-Royce license plate sold for an eye-watering $616,836, while the world’s most expensive license cost the buyer a whopping $15 million.

But in the case of Koorey, it wasn’t the initial cost that was the problem, but the steady stream of traffic tickets she’s continued to receive even after selling it. 

“I don’t have a car. I don’t drive. Those plates were turned in,” she told CBS New York this week. 

Koorey told the news outlet that just days earlier she’d received $100 speeding tickets from Chicago and that was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Over the years she’d been hit with tickets for driving through red lights, speeding, parking, and is flagged for E-ZPass tolls – adding up to thousands of dollars in fines.

It seems it’s all caused by those personalized plates

But how is all this happening? 

Well, Koorey believes that some less-than-scrupulous drivers have been buying USS Enterprise novelty plates off the internet and putting them on their cars. 

So, when a car – wearing the fake plates – is flagged for a ticket, that ticket is somehow winding its way to Koorey’s address given that she was once the registered owner of the NCC-1701 plates. 

“It all comes back to me, so the whole country has my name and address for tickets I don’t even owe,” she said.

The New York Department of Motor Vehicles told CBS New York that using novelty plates in place of real ones was a matter for the police.

The spokesperson also said there’s nothing in the department’s system that connects Koorey to those plates and that its up to each state and billing entity to make sure it’s using the most up-to-date information. 

Thankfully, since Koorey went to CBS New York with her story, a lawyer has reached out and has offered to help remedy the situation. 

Live long and prosper.