A Central Jersey police department is using a ‘shrub’ to enforce distracted driving laws

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It has become the talk of the town, state and the country.

The Dunellen Police Department in Middlesex County issued 74 citations for distracted driving last Wednesday during a six-hour enforcement operation along North Washington Avenue in the borough’s highly trafficked, pedestrian-heavy downtown area. To do this, an officer went undercover as a “shrub.”

Dunellen is among 126 municipalities in New Jersey that received a grant from the state Office of the Attorney General for the “Put the Phone Away or Pay” campaign in April during National Distracted Driving Awareness Month.

Police Chief Dan Smith told WHYY News that the operation involving the “shrub” was not grant-funded.

“This was simply a periodic, extra enforcement detail designed to target some of the ongoing issues we have been experiencing,” Smith said.

It is illegal to hold a cellphone while driving in New Jersey

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, almost every state, the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories have banned texting while driving. Montana is the only state not to implement the restriction. Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota consider the infraction a secondary offense, meaning law enforcement cannot pull a driver over solely for texting.

New Jersey is among 29 states that implemented a ban on driving while holding a cellphone. Though Pennsylvania has a ban on texting while driving, it is the only state in the mid-Atlantic to not have a handheld cellphone ban.

Drivers who violate the law in the Garden State can be fined $200 to $400 for the first offense, $400 to $600 for a second offense and up to $800 for subsequent offenses, along with three insurance points. All violations require a mandatory court appearance.

In 2024, 42% of crashes in New Jersey involved a distracted driver, according to the attorney general’s office. During the state’s distracted driving enforcement campaign in April 2025, 6,872 citations were issued for cellphone use or texting.

Other creative disguises used to catch distracted drivers

Law enforcement across the country has been creative in catching people driving while holding their phones.

Officers in California have disguised themselves as panhandlers to find cellphone violations. Similar tactics have been employed in Minnesota, where officers have also boarded a school bus, which gave them a higher vantage point to find violators. A police commander in Stamford, Connecticut disguised himself as a construction worker and roadside surveyor to assist with stings.

According to a blog post from the criminal defense law firm Bailey & Toraya, LLP, police can use “a variety of methods to conduct their investigations, including the use of officers that do not look like cops.”

“In New Jersey, undercover police officers (and police dogs), can act like and look like anyone who would normally be at that location, to blend in and observe without their identity as law enforcement being disclosed,” the post reads. “What they observe is admissible as evidence in criminal prosecutions, and the only limitation on their undercover conduct is that they are not allowed to do anything that is itself illegal.”