They peeled off the bumper stickers and switched the telltale license plates, but the simple truth is this: Rental cars are still easy to find on South Florida’s highways.
Put tourists in them late at night, fiddling with maps on unfamiliar turf, and they can become targets for thugs who prey on tourists.
To some law-abiding residents, finding the cars has become an amusement.
“It’s kind of a game to me,” said Martin Holder, who commutes from Fort Lauderdale to Miami. “We used to look for the Y and Z [license plates). Now we look for the ‘June’ expiration tag.”
In Florida, the registration of all leased vehicles expires in June each year. That means a “JUN” sticker is in the upper left-hand corner of the license plate.
Not all vehicles with June tags are rentals. Those owners whose birthdays fall in June would have to register their vehicles during that month, said Janet Dennis, spokeswoman for Florida’s Department of Motor Vehicles and Highway Safety.
Dennis said state officials do not consider the June tag a problem.
“You have to get awfully close to read that little tag,” she said. “It’s more visible things that let people know a tourist is driving – it’s a new vehicle, there’s luggage visible, they’re driving erratic, they’re looking at maps.”
Another clue that a car is among the 300,000 to 650,000 rentals estimated to be on Florida’s roads is the small bar-coding sticker most rental companies use as an inventory-tracking device.
When the Florida Legislature earlier this year banned all corporate and for-hire markings on cars leased in Florida, it allowed a decal of 2-by-4 inches for inventory purposes only. The sticker cannot bear a corporate name or logo.
Often, it is hidden in the door jamb or under the front bumper, sometimes on the top of the rear bumper where it is not readily visible from behind.
“We do everything we can to make them inconspicuous,” said Sandy Richards of Alamo Rent A Car in Fort Lauderdale.
The car rented by Uwe-Wilhelm Rakebrand, the German tourist killed in Miami early Wednesday morning, had a bar-code sticker on the top of its rear bumper. Police do not think the decal tipped his attackers.
Metro-Dade Commission Chairman Arthur Teele Jr. said the biggest problem with rental cars is that visitors arriving at Miami International Airport after dark must find their way across an unfamiliar city to a hotel. Dade officials want to encourage these visitors to take cabs or buses to their hotels, and either pick up their cars the next morning or arrange to have them delivered.
“They’re spotting them at the airport, late at night, and they’re stalking these people,” Teele said. “If we can find a way to stop people from renting at night, we can cut into that problem.”
Public officials also want to step up programs to improve lighting and surveillance on Miami’s expressways and toll roads. Gov. Lawton Chiles has asked state transportation officials to consider mounting surveillance cameras along some of Dade’s expressways where crime is a problem.
In April, after the slaying of German tourist Barbara Meller Jensen, Metro-Dade police created a tourist robbery abatement squad. From 4-10 p.m., officers cruise the highways looking for lost motorists. The squad has helped at least 2,000 drivers.
At the same time, state and local police agencies created the Violent Street Crime Task Force to put more officers into crime-plagued areas where residents and tourists are at risk.
Beyond beefing up law enforcement and encouraging safety among residents and visitors, Teele said public officials must address the cause behind crime.
“We have got to come to grips and deal with what is causing the antisocial behavior we’re seeing that results in crimes like this,” Teele said.
