Taped-over reversing lights

[parabolica]

Any ideas why someone would do this? Sat behind a 08 Clio today and they had placed black electrical tape over both reversing lights - said lights are in the centre of the light cluster so it was deliberate. I'm guessing a possible scam where they reverse into unsuspecting people who don't see the reverse lights and then get blamed for rear-ending the Clio? but I might be overreacting. Either way I was happy to let an Uber Prius pull in between me and the Clio before we moved off from the lights.

[parabolica]

I thought about broken lights/switch, but surely it would be easier to remove the bulbs rather than going to the effort of sculpting leccy tape on the clusters...