Blawnox Police Department joins North Hills DUI Task Force

The Blawnox Police Department has joined the North Hills DUI Task Force to bolster its efforts to combat aggressive and impaired driving.

The task force allocates funds to member departments to cover officer costs, such as overtime, for traffic details along state roads. Funds come from a PennDOT grant.

Blawnox Council approved its police department joining the task force Feb. 8.

“It gives us an opportunity to put a little more manpower on the streets that’s paid for by the grant,” said Blawnox police Chief Patrick Goodman. “It lets us get some more hours out there concentrating on calming the traffic on Freeport Road. That was the big draw. It’s not just (driving under the influence) that we look at with this.”

Its first task force-assisted, aggressive driving enforcement began March 20.

“We’re making stops and getting the word out,” Goodman said. “We’re doing the best we can with that. I do think the traffic enforcement is pretty good.”

West Deer police Sgt. Robert Petosky and West Deer Officer T.J. Trocki are the North Hills DUI Task Force co-coordinators. Petosky said Blawnox was not in the original budget for this year, but officials moved some money around to allocate $1,200 for its new member. PennDOT awarded the task force $100,033 for a grant year stretching from October through Sept. 30 of this year.

Other member departments are Ross, O’Hara, Hampton, Indiana Township, Shaler, McCandless, West View, Millvale, Northern Regional, Etna and Franklin Park. Money is allocated to member departments based on crash statistics, which were unavailable for Blawnox.

Petosky said he was pleased to welcome Blawnox into the fold.

“It’s good that other agencies recognize that they may have some issues within their jurisdictions,” he said. “We’re just trying to curb aggressive driving, seat belt violations and driving under the influence.”

Individual departments handle aggressive driving and seat belt campaigns in their own towns, but DUI checkpoints can be manned by police officers from different departments.

Roving and stationary checkpoints usually happen on weekends with an average of about 85 vehicles being stopped each night.

The task force did five roving DUI patrols and three stationary checkpoints in 2021-22, according to task force statistics. They resulted in 2,457 vehicles being stopped and 83 drivers being detained — 49 of whom completed field sobriety tests and 23 were arrested for DUI.

There were three waves of aggressive driving enforcement in 2021-22, which resulted in 471 people being stopped for various violations, including speeding and running red lights and stop signs. Officers issued 333 citations and 176 warnings. They made three DUI arrests and issued three nontraffic citations.

Two waves of seat belt enforcement resulted in 722 people being stopped for vehicle code violations, 514 citations issued, 356 warnings, six DUI arrests made, four nontraffic citations issued and two warrant suspects arrested.