How to report a dangerous driver in NJ

How many times have you witnessed a driver do something terrible and you thought you wished there were a cop around? When you see a dangerous situation on the road, you can always report it yourself. This happened to my mother just this morning. She was leaving for work and witnessed a car driving erratically. She said it was swerving dangerously all over the road, in and out of other people's lanes and even oncoming lanes. She knew this guy must have been drunk or high even though it was early in the morning. Not wanting an innocent person to be hurt, she called her local police. She pulled over to do this so she fell behind in traffic. Sure enough once she was driving again she saw this car had indeed been pulled over by police a few miles down the road.

You can always do the same thing. In my mom's case, she called 911. New Jersey State Police say you can always do that when the situation looks like an emergency and appears it could truly end in something cataclysmic. Another option however is dialing #77. This is a hotline operated by the NJSP to report aggressive drivers. It's been around for well over a decade but not everyone knows about it. State Police recommend it be used for cases where a person may be driving aggressively, road raging, blaring their horn, harassing other drivers, etc.. In the last few years the #77 hotline has received between 25,000 and 30,000 calls annually.

One thing they don't recommend doing is trying to follow a road raging vehicle and playing cop. It's best to give whatever information you can glean safely like the make and model of the car, license plate if you can get it, and as close to an exact point as you can offer like a milepost. Then back off and let the police do their jobs.