Drinking among British women and its impact on their pedestrian and driving activities: A review of the literature

This literature review is the first stage of a larger project to explore the incidence of drunkenness among women and the possibility that this has led to an increase in drink driving or risk to women as pedestrians.

Key findings relating to drink driving
The magnitude of the problem
• Men and women in younger age groups and those of all ages on higher incomes are more likely to have drunk more than twice the recommended limits on at least one day in the previous week
• The groups of men and women most likely to be at risk of harm from their drinking are older adults and those with higher incomes, although young people are often perceived as the greater problem
• 63% of all alcohol is drunk in the home
• Although men are still the majority, women’s convictions for drink driving are
increasing as a proportion of all convictions (up by 16%) whilst male rates are
falling (down by 24%).
• Women drivers aged 40 and over appear to be more over the breath alcohol
limit, proportionately, than other groups, both females and males.
• The peak hours for failing a breath test are 22.00-05.59 for both men and
women. But the proportion of women caught in these hours is slightly higher
than the proportion of men.
• Little is known about sex difference in the incidence of drug driving but there
is some evidence that legally prescribed drugs are more likely to feature than
recreational drugs for women tested positive.
• There is virtually no information about the differences by sex for drunk
pedestrian casualties.

The biological context
• Men and women, perhaps unsurprisingly, have different drink preferences.
• More significantly, women metabolise alcohol differently and reach a higher
level of blood alcohol concentration than men when the amount is adjusted for body weight. In other words, the same amount of alcohol has a greater effect on a woman than a man.

Cognitive processes involved in drink-drive decisions
• For some, once drunk drink driving is a ‘non decision’.
• For others, risk assessment generally focuses on avoidance of detection rather than collision.
• Some drink drivers believe that their driving ability is not impaired.
• ‘Normalising’ drink driving as acceptable, and something that others do is also used to legitimise drinking and driving.

Education and marketing to women
• Much of road safety campaign material is aimed at males.
• The small amount that is specifically aimed at women often carried the wrong message and acts as a ‘turn off’.
• The common association of ‘binge drinking’ with young people involved in rowdy street behaviour belies the extent and impact of binge drinking occurring more routinely in the home, especially among older women (and men).

Conclusion
Our understanding of the subject of women and drink driving has been hampered by the frequent lack of distinction by sex in the statistics and literature. A strong recommendation is that this gap needs to be redressed since it is clear from our review that there are important differences and further that a gender specific response is necessary to address what is clearly a disproportional increase in women drink driving.

The review has also identified a number of key knowledge gaps requiring further research which will be the focus of the second stage of this study. The work will include a number of strands.
• Statistical analysis from other data bases.
• Desk top work about the impact of legislation and enforcement.
• Empirical social research on economic influences, health, cognitive and
sociological factors focusing on both women drivers and pedestrians.
• Conclusions on the implications of the findings for social marketing and
education, training and publicity road safety work.