Police from 13 North Hills communities running DUI checkpoints this weekend

Police officers from 13 communities will be out looking for impaired motorists this weekend as part of the North Hills DUI Task Force.

This is the seventh year the task force has been in operation. The organization has conducted 230 check points and roving patrols. During that period, 2,100 motorists where tested to determine if they were impaired. Of those, 956 were arrested driving on charges of under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The task force comprises officers from Bradford Woods, Etna, Indiana, Marshall, O’Hara, Pine, Richland, Ross, Shaler, West Deer, McCandless, West View and Millvale.

The program is coordinated by West Deer police and uses sobriety checkpoints as a visual deterrent to get impaired drivers off the road.

The checkpoints are complemented by roving or saturation patrols in which traffic officers look for drivers on the road who show signs that they are impaired. The roving patrols also work to catch motorists who try to avoid the the DUI checkpoints.

A driver in Pennsylvania is considered drunk if their blood alcohol level is 0.08%. Nationwide, commercial drivers can be cited for DUI if the alcohol level in their bloodstream is 0.04% or greater.