NJ Police Crack Down on Texting While Driving During 'U Drive. U Text. U Pay.' Campaign

No, it’s not an April Fools prank.

Beginning April 1, police throughout New Jersey be participating in “U Drive. U Text. U Pay.” - a nationwide enforcement campaign that aims to stop texting and driving.

The campaign, which combines intense enforcement of anti-texting laws with advertising and media outreach to let people know about the enforcement and convince them to obey the law, aims to combat distracted driving that may result in injury or death.

“The dangers of driver inattention are staggering, placing drivers, passengers and pedestrians alike in harm’s way,” said Acting Attorney General John Hoffman. “To continue to make our roads safer, we must be as aggressive with distracted drivers as we have been with drunk drivers and people who refused to wear seat belts.”

According to the Division of Highway Safety, researchers analyzed the six seconds leading up to a crash in nearly 1,700 videos of teen drivers taken from in-vehicle event recorders and found that distraction was a factor in 58 percent of all crashes studied, including 89 percent of road-departure crashes and 76 percent of rear-end crashes.

The campaign will run until April 21.

To see a list of agencies receiving funding for this initiative, click here.

For more information on the campaign, click here.