Living in New Jersey you can find yourself often wracking your brain for any explanation for absolutely insane sketchy things you see happening around you on the daily.
It’s rare, hugely satisfying - and sometimes, as in this case, infuriating - when you stumble upon a complete, thorough explanation of what the hell is going on.
This was the case with ghost tags. We had seen these idiots tearing in and out of traffic at triple digit speeds and noticed how many always seem to have paper dealer plates on their loud-muffler masculinity crises machines. I even had one side swipe me and my family on the Belt Parkway only to speed off with impunity.
Then one day it all made sense. That’s the day we read journalist Jesse Coburn’s work on the topic of “ghost tags” - fraudulent, temporary license plates used by drivers looking to skirt the law and drive with toll free and reckless abandon. Coburn’s investigation into the thriving black market for Streetblog and NJ Monitor won him the prestigious Polk award and resulted in New Jersey lawmakers changing the laws to crack down on ghost tags. But not, unfortunately, before lives were lost to the phenomenon public officials had been warned was occurring right under their noses.
This is a classic New Jersey tale of our state serving as liminal backwater where the dirty business serving neighboring metropolises is carried out. Of public officials knowing damn well dangerous shenanigans were going on and not doing anything about it until they were embarrassed into taking action. And, thankfully, of a reporter who doggedly followed his own curiosity down a road that wound up solving mysteries playing out before our eyes, getting laws changed and, yes, doubtlessly saving lives.
Give a listen. Hug a journalist. Read Coburn’s work. Subscribe the Jersey Angle and thanks for listening.
New Jersey's "Ghost tags"