State, Local Police Begin Major Crack Down on Distracted Driving

Natalie Mieles (Patch Staff) contributed to this report

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 combines intense enforcement of anti-texting laws with advertising and media outreach to let people know about the enforcement and hopefully combat distracted driving.

A total of 38 police departments across New Jersey are doing extra patrols after the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety distributed $190,000 in grants across all of the departments.

“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.