Drunk Driving Crackdown Will Target Women

August 2009

A new nationwide crackdown on drunk driving starts tomorrow, and it will feature sobriety checkpoints, a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, and saturation patrols. In addition, it will focus on women.

Female drivers account for a growing percentage of drunk drivers, says U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. According to FBI statistics, arrests of female drunk drivers increased by almost 30 percent from 1998 to 2007. During the same time period, DUI arrests of men fell by 7.5 percent, though men are still four times more likely to be arrested than women.

Studies done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that last year there was a 9 percent overall decline in drunk driving accidents. However, the number of impaired women drivers involved in fatal crashes increased in 10 states, including Ohio and West Virginia. In Pennsylvania, the number of female drunk drivers in fatal crashes fell from 67 in 2007 to 54 last year.

Pennsylvania's crackdown is expected to involve more than 600 municipal police departments, all state police troops, and several university police. PennDOT announced that Allegheny, Beaver, and Lawrence counties will feature "a lot of DUI enforcement," including checkpoints and roving patrols.