KEY POINTS:
The stench of alcohol, bloodshot eyes and stumble in her step are a dead giveaway. She is the first woman to take the shameful walk towards the police booze bus in Bairds Rd, Otara, just four days before Christmas.
But she is not the first woman to be caught this year. Far from it. Numbers are skyrocketing - from fewer than 300 more than 20 years ago to over 5000 in 2006. It's anyone's guess what the 2007 figures will be. But they won't be good.
The brown-haired woman is quiet. Is she silently panicking? Is she weighing up whether to make a run for it? She wouldn't be the first; two Polynesian men abandoned their car and made a mad dash earlier. They couldn't outrun the two young cops, who recently graduated from Porirua's Police College, and are not yet jaded by these sorts of drunken antics.
The breath-testing checkpoint is directly outside a brewery and Auckland's spinal unit. A silver-haired cop jokes about the irony of the location. His tone drops when he adds wistfully that if only drink-drivers would get this point.
Meanwhile, the brown-haired lady silently walks up the bus steps, takes a seat behind the little examination table and appears to be listening to what the officer has to say. She'll be given at least two chances to consult with a lawyer.
She is one of five females found drink-driving at the Bairds Rd police checkpoint on Friday, December 21 - compared to eight males charged with being over the legal limit of 80mg (milligrams) of alcohol per 100ml (millilitres) of blood, or more than 400mcg (micrograms) of alcohol per litre of breath.
It's clear the anti-drink-driving message isn't penetrating.
You have only to look at police crime statistics for the past three decades to find an alarming number of drunken females are being nabbed driving under the influence. In 1980, 274 females were sentenced for driving with excess alcohol. That figure has risen steadily, with only one small dip in 1994. Last year, 5016 females were sentenced for driving with excess alcohol.
Auckland road policing manager Heather Wells said the figures are shocking and show no sign of slowing down.
"We [police] are definitely seeing an increase," she said. "For quite a few years, women were right down in the numbers of apprehension. But we've noticed that growing continually over the last few years. The disappointing part is women driving with children in the car."
The number of drink-driving convictions is now rising by about 1,000 a year and women offenders are impacting hugely on that number.
"I think, years ago, a lot more women became the sober driver, but that has changed now," Wells said. "There is a whole cultural change and we've seen increases in youth drinking and driving as well."
A recent spate of horrific female drink-driving cases highlights this point. A fortnight ago, a wife was caught driving under the influence when she picked up her husband - he had been caught drink-driving earlier - from a police checkpoint.
At the beginning of the month in the Bay of Plenty, a heavily pregnant woman was caught driving while allegedly three times over the legal limit of 400mcg of alcohol per litre of breath.
No clear descriptions of high-risk female drink-drivers have emerged. Police are catching women from all walks of life, including lawyers and students.
"We [police] are really concerned," Wells said. "This is a disaster waiting to happen quite frankly. There are women who drive their kids to school the morning after a big night out. They would still be over the limit. If you want to go and kill yourself, you don't do it with kiddies in the car and put them at risk."
Currently, two females hold a place in a list of top 10 Kiwi drink-drivers - last year a Bay of Plenty woman blew 2200mcg and, in 2005, a Tasman woman, in her teens, recorded 1,952mcg. The third worst drink-driver was a woman relief teacher caught in Papamoa in 2006. The 39-year-old blew into the breath tester. It peaked at 2000mcg and couldn't go any higher. A blood test revealed she had 426mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.
In June, Melissa Rothwell, 27, nearly made the list by blowing nearly five times over the legal limit. The unemployed woman was caught when a worried motorist followed her for 4km before snatching her keys away. Allegedly, Rothwell was about to visit her Alcoholics Anonymous adviser, but was instead found slumped over the wheel asleep. She blew 1943mcg per litre of breath and struggled to talk or stand upright. She is currently in alcohol rehab.
Whangarei woman Trevina Baker, 28, shocked the nation in early November when she allegedly blew twice the legal limit and had six children in her car - five allegedly unrestrained. Police allege Baker blew 839mcg of alcohol per litre of breath over the legal limit of 400mcg. She told the Herald on Sunday she was fleeing a domestic violence situation. She will appear in court next year.
At least the brown-haired woman in Bairds Rd doesn't have any kids in her car. Psychologist Sara Chatwin finds it "unbelievable" that women are driving over the limit with children on board.
"Especially given we've had such an emphasis on child abuse," she said. "If females are driving around over the limit with their kids that's not a good thing for family, or a good signal to be sending children, and it's unlawful and dangerous."
Chatwin blames alcohol's acceptance in society and a change in female attitudes.
"Certainly we have seen a lot more indicators that women are becoming more proactive about joining in, drinking, and meeting new people," she said. "To a point, that is not necessarily a bad thing, but when behaviour impacts on others, like children, and when behaviour impacts on others that depend on their parents, then that's got to have serious implications.
"I suppose, as we see an increase in drinking behaviour and drinking becoming acceptable across the board, it's probably going to end up affecting these kind of groups that, beforehand, were thought of as people that would desist from drinking because they had responsibilities."
Dr Lesley Procter of Otago University's school of social sciences, blames the 'girls can do anything' attitude for the dramatic increase in drink-driving.
"Obviously, the first phase of the drink-driving blitz hit mostly male drivers because, psychologically, males drive as part of the gender division," Procter said. "But there has been a handover of role responsibilities where men are telling their partners to drive."
Procter is completing a year-long research project into the drinking culture in New Zealand. She surveyed 350 people and conducted three focus groups.
"One of things that will come out of the research is women are seeing excessive drinking, based on the Alcohol Advisory Council's (ALAC) definition, as a way of being like the boys," Procter said. "They are borrowing the privilege of being masculine and drinking in masculine ways, which is also perceived to be attractive to boys."
Drinking is also commonplace in the workforce and, with more women holding down jobs, the opportunity and pressure to drink is greater. This is leading to a social climate where women are drinking spontaneously without thinking about how they will get home.
"The opportunities are there for drinking in the public sphere when they weren't necessarily there before," Procter said. "I think there are several distinct groups: One of predominantly young women who are doing the drinking like the boys, drinking in the public sphere; and drinking as a result of work and workplace socialising.
"But then you've got the other group who are partners and wives who have been caught drink-driving because they're actually bailing their men out, in other words driving them home when they hadn't planned to be."
Rebecca Williams of Alcohol Healthwatch agrees that evidence suggests women are drinking more. "In some domains, women's drinking is nearly equal the consumption patterns of men in terms of the quantities," Williams said. "Studies published last year found hazardous alcohol use alone has been estimated to cause 31.5 per cent of all deaths in 15-to 29-year-old men in the developed world. We are on track to have those statistics replicated for women, and potentially include a whole lot of young people. It's pretty scary."
The normalisation of alcohol in everyday situations may be to blame for soaring female drink-driving levels, she adds.
"Alcohol is promoted that everyone's got to drink on every occasion," Williams said. "But when you translate that into everyday life, there are many occasions where you shouldn't drink. It's very hard for people to make those distinctions. They're not thinking consciously about planning for how they're going to get home, or what they'll do if they get into a bit of trouble."
Asked how alcohol could overcome a mother's urge to protect her kids, Williams said: "It is still a mind-altering, toxic substance. No matter how responsible you are in a normal everyday capacity as a mum, when you are drinking you don't think straight. We take it for granted that we can handle it and be okay. But when you are supervising children, you lose your clues."
To keep things in perspective, according to Ministry of Transport crash statistics, for the year ending 31 December 2006, over 82 per cent of the alcohol/drug affected drivers in fatal crashes were male. Alcohol or drugs affected only 15 per cent of female drivers in fatal crashes.
But that 15 per cent is on the rise.
Megan McPherson, spokesman for the Sensible Sentencing Trust's Crossroads, which lobbies for harsher penalties for recidivist drink-drivers, believes that problem women drivers may be in the grip of an alcohol addiction which transcends even a mother's care for her kids. "When you're drunk, you have no idea what you are doing," she says.
"It's heavily tied up with addiction. That's why these women blow so high.
"A normal social drinker would probably have to go to an emergency medical centre to have their stomachs pumped, or pass out in a ditch.
"If anyone should know better, it's a mum. But alcohol is a mind-altering drug that makes people totally irresponsible. The cases coming though are paralytic drunks who are drinking off their heads and don't know their kids are even there. It's a huge worry."
Alcohol industry heads scoff at the normalisation of alcohol debate, but anti-drink-driving watchdogs claim people don't know when to stop.
"The normalisation of alcohol means people think they need alcohol in most situations," Williams said. "People think they need it at the beach. But how are they going to get to the beach? How are they going to stay safe in the waves? How are they going to look after the kids in the swimming pool when they're getting distracted by the jokes at the barbecue?
"When you translate it into everyday life decisions, alcohol does impair brain function. You definitely need your faculties around when you're doing something like driving, not to mention supervising kids."
New Zealand's drinking ethic goes back to the colonial period. Undoing several generations of social history is no small feat. Both sexes are taught to use alcohol as a band-aid when sad and to celebrate.
"As long as society continues to see drinking as a rite of passage nothing will change," Procter said. "There is enormous pressure on both men and women to drink. We conducted an all-male focus group with university students to talk about the pressures they experienced in high school. They said they had to be seen to be able to hold their booze as a rite of passage.
"That attitude is so ingrained in New Zealand culture that it is still one of the major pressures on young men to drink. Where that translates into young women drinking, I suspect, is the 'girls can do anything' campaign, which has been very successful at getting women to adopt some of the more negative masculine patterns."
National manager of Students Against Drink Driving (SADD) Julie Soper said more young women were being pressured to drive because boy-friends believed they have drunk less.
"It's quite scary," Soper said. "I think they [girls] generally think they are doing the right thing. But even one drink, or half a drink, for people under 20 can push them over the limit.
"There are young females out there drinking as much as their male friends. The safest thing to do is plan before you party."
People under 20 are not allowed to drive if they have more than 30mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, or more than 150mcg of alcohol per litre of breath. They have lower limits than adults.
So, what can be done?
ALAC, the Accident Compensation Commission (ACC), the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the police want the blood-alcohol limit for under-20s to be lowered from 30mg per 100ml of blood to 10mg per 100ml. For adult drivers, they want it cut from 80mg per 100ml of blood to 50mg. They estimate this measure could stop 260 injuries and 14 road deaths per year.
SADD would like a zero blood-alcohol limit for all drivers, and Alcohol Healthwatch want pricing and environmental strategies put in place.
Thirteen and 14-year-olds needed to be targeted by anti-drink-driving messages. Procter believes getting them before they embark on a drinking career is key.
Meanwhile, back at the booze bus, the brown-haired woman is being read her rights.
She is slumping slightly in the seat, with a blank look in her eyes. Whether she felt remorse the next morning is not clear.
One can only hope that, if she is about to drive drunk again, she'll ask herself if she is prepared to kill.
But, going by the statistics, such self-questioning by women is happening less and less.
THE SAD STATE OF THE NATION
Oct 21: Brendan Dance, 24, was jogging only 200m from his Tuakau home when his short life fatefully collided with that of an allegedly drunk driver. Lynette Westcott will appear in Pukekohe District Court in January charged with excess blood alcohol causing death, dangerous driving causing death and failure to render assistance after an injury.
Nov 16: Whangarei woman Trevina Baker, 28, is accused of drink-driving at twice the legal limit with six children in her car - five were allegedly unrestrained. Police allege Baker blew 839mcg of alcohol per litre of breath over the legal limit of 400mcg. She will also appear in court next year.
Nov 18: A six-months pregnant Kawerau woman was charged with driving while more than double the legal limit.
Nov 23: A 45-year-old Huntly woman was found driving with three times over the legal limit with her two children, aged 5 and 9, and a 4-month-old grandson in the car.
Nov 24: A 4-year-old girl was thrown from the car her mother was driving near Huia. The mother allegedly kept driving before crashing. She was charged with drink-driving.
Nov 28: A 23-year-old woman with three children in her car was stopped in Karapiro and was over the limit.
Dec 5: A heavily pregnant 23-year-old woman was caught driving while allegedly three times over the legal limit. The woman was stopped after a police officer, travelling on the Bay of Plenty road, saw tyre rubber and debris flying from the car. Police accuse the woman of blowing a 1259mcg of alcohol per litre of breath.
Dec 14: Hastings woman Kathleen Sauer was fined $500, plus $130 court costs for drink-driving. She was fined $200 plus $130 costs for failing to accompany police and $500 plus costs of $130 for dangerous driving. She was disqualified from driving for seven months after she was caught on Waimarama Rd near Hastings with a breath alcohol level of 685mcg.
Dec 16: More than 330 drivers face drink-driving charges after one of the country's biggest police blitzes. One man caught drink-driving called his wife to collect him - she was charged with drink-driving when she was breath-tested on arrival.
