Belleville Gets Grant To Run Traffic Crackdown Leading Up To Memorial Day

BELLEVILLE, NJ — Belleville is among the New Jersey towns that has received funding to run “Click It or Ticket” campaigns leading up to Memorial Day 2026.

The annual statewide traffic crackdown will take place from May 18 to May 31. Officers will be looking for unbuckled drivers and passengers and checking that children are properly secured in appropriate car seats or booster seats, or using seat belts.

To support this year’s campaign, the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety is providing $774,760 in grant funding to 113 local law enforcement agencies for seat belt enforcement, child passenger restraint compliance and public awareness activities.

The Belleville Police Department will receive $7,000. See the other local departments that will get grant money here.

This year’s “Click It or Ticket” campaign will overlap with Memorial Day weekend, typically one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

Under New Jersey law, drivers and passengers are required to wear seat belts, and drivers are responsible for ensuring that passengers under the age of 18 are properly restrained. Children under age 8 and shorter than 57 inches must be secured in the appropriate child passenger restraint system, based on the child’s age, height and weight.

The consequences can be deadly, authorities said:

“In 2024, 135 people killed in New Jersey crashes were not wearing seat belts, and unrestrained occupants accounted for 43 percent of all vehicle occupant fatalities. Among those unrestrained fatalities, one in four people were between the ages of 21 and 30.”

Front-seat seat belt use in New Jersey reached nearly 95 percent following last year’s “Click It or Ticket” campaign, according to an annual observational study conducted by the New Jersey Institute of Technology and funded by the Division of Highway Traffic Safety. That is 4 percentage points higher than the national average, state officials said.

During the 2025 “Click It or Ticket” campaign, participating agencies issued 5,352 seat belt summonses, 2,624 speeding summonses and 706 cell phone violations.

While seat belt use remains high in New Jersey, safety officials continue to emphasize that every seating position matters, including the back seat, and that child restraints must be used correctly to provide their full lifesaving benefit.

“New Jersey has made important progress, and most drivers understand that seat belts save lives,” said Michael Rizol Jr., director of the Division of Highway Traffic Safety.

“But there is still more work to do,” Rizol added.

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