Her Trekkie License Plate Caused Years of Problems

Beda Koorey has racked up hundreds of alleged traffic violations in the US and Canada since 2020, despite not having driven anywhere in more than four years. The New York resident wasn't just accused of speeding. Authorities also claimed her vehicle was used in robberies, including one international case, reports the Washington Post. For Koorey, a 75-year-old retiree, it's been a never-ending nightmare. "I just want to cry," she told News 12 last month. It turns out Koorey was once registered to the license plate NCC 1701, representing the call letters of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek—a popular code for companies hawking fake personalized plates.

Koorey's Trekkie husband had received the license plate in 1978 and transferred it to the couple's shared vehicle in 1998. In April 2020, the non-Trekkie Koorey surrendered it to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. Two months later, she stopped driving altogether. But then the tickets started trickling, and eventually flooding, in. "I'm blaming the Department of Motor Vehicles because when these people are inputting those plates, it's coming back to me," Koorey told News 12. While records show Koorey's license plate was destroyed, a rep for the New York DMV told the Post there's no "de-linking" a person from a license plate. But it appears that might not be exactly true.

After Koorey went public with her story, she met with attorney Kenneth Mollins, who got in touch with NY DMV Deputy Commissioner and General Counsel Joshua Vinciguerra, threatening a lawsuit. "By the next morning, Koorey's information no longer showed up when 'NCC 1701' was searched, Mollins said," per the Post. The lawyer believes this should fix the problem for Koorey, but "it just shows this big, bad entity was just stepping on this lady for no reason," he says. "They have all tortured me for four years," Koorey tells the Post. The DMV rep, meanwhile, says he believes Koorey's frustration "should be directed to the tolling and billing entities who have victimized her," as the DMV has "gone above and beyond to assist Ms. Koorey for the past 4 years." (More license plates stories.)