The City of Portland is giving its red light camera program a boost by cracking down on missing license plates.

The surprise comes over who's writing the tickets and how many tickets have been written.

Portland’s parking enforcement officers -- not the police -- have been quietly writing tickets for missing license plates since mid-March.

In the first two months, they wrote 3,000 citations. That was about a tenth of the total citations they wrote during that period.

Parking enforcement officer Becky Rhodes has been busy.

“I was surprised,” she said. “I paid closer attention once we started enforcing them and I was surprised how many there were.”

“I think that is going overboard,” said driver Jordan Geis.

He says he understands the city's legitimate need for revenue. However, “ticketing people without front license plates that are just parked seems pretty aggressive,” he explained.

There's a reason for all this -- the city missed out on about $300,000 in revenue last year when 1500 plateless drivers photographed by red-light cameras got away with it.

“We do not have a going-away shot. So if there's no front plate on the vehicle we've lost that violation entirely,” said Sgt. Todd Davis of the Portland Police Bureau.

He says the new enforcement effort conducted by parking meter officials can only help improve public safety.

“If (drivers) have two plates that's a 50 percent better chance we have of getting a plate off a suspect vehicle.”

License plates are supposed to be mounted on the front of the car, not on the front dash board. Out-of-state drivers are exempt from the new enforcement.

The effort adds a new task to the to-do list of a modern day parking enforcement officer, a task that may increase city revenues significantly.

The fee for a missing-plate citation is $35. Red light infractions cost more than $200.

Later this month, the city will add red light cameras to two more intersections in Southeast Portland.