A police officer within the small New Jersey borough of Dunellen took undercover work to a complete new degree this week by dressing up as a shrub to catch distracted drivers illegally glued to their cellphones.
The unconventional tactic paid off for the Dunellen Police Division, which handed out 74 citations in simply six hours on a busy downtown highway.
The operation, carried out on Wednesday, focused motorists violating New Jersey’s strict cellphone regulation in a pedestrian-heavy space recognized for site visitors and a comparatively excessive variety of accidents for a one-square-mile city.
The division boasted concerning the excessive citations in a publish on Fb, which included a photograph of the officer in his disguise.
“Did you see our ‘shrub’ at present? In case you had your head buried in your telephone, in all probability not!” the publish declared. “Our ‘shrub’ was busy. We issued 74 citations to drivers distracted by their gadgets in a six-hour window.”
The publish went on to induce drivers that “that textual content or notification can wait. Hold your eyes on the highway, not your display screen!”
Photographs accompanying the announcement confirmed an officer totally outfitted in a inexperienced ghillie-style go well with of synthetic leaves and branches, standing on the sidewalk close to a tree and peering by means of binoculars at passing automobiles.
One other picture from the division’s publish featured an officer sporting a T-shirt boldly proclaiming “Not a Cop.”
Don’t let the bushes idiot you. A police division outdoors New York Metropolis is utilizing an uncommon method to catch distracted drivers: with an officer wearing disguise as a shrub and utilizing a pair of binoculars. pic.twitter.com/Wnz1itG5Hc
— ABC Information (@ABC) July 31, 2026
New Jersey regulation bans speaking or texting on a cellphone whereas driving. First offenses carry fines of $200 to $400, with penalties rising to $400–$600 for a second offense and $600–$800, plus potential factors and a attainable 90-day license suspension, for subsequent offenses.
Det. Sgt. Nicholas Goldman of the Dunellen power instructed CBS News that the division has seen a regarding variety of accidents, in order that they determined to strive a novel enforcement methodology.
“Whereas it was a enjoyable factor, the underlying mission is extremely severe. For a one-square-mile city, we’ve a comparatively excessive variety of accidents, and we have been searching for a novel enforcement methodology,” Goldman stated.
Dunellen Borough site visitors security patrolman Kevin Condis added, “So what we’re seeing a number of is individuals normally simply holding their telephones, following both a GPS, or FaceTiming a number of the time, you already know, we did get, sadly, see lots of people holding the telephone with two palms and, like, virtually driving with their knees, which sounds loopy, however, you already know, there’s lots of people that have been doing it.”
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