Drink-drive women on increase
5:00AM Saturday June 02, 2007
By Elizabeth Binning
Police such as Acting Sergeant Avril Peterson are finding more and more women motorists are driving after drinking. Photo / Greg Bowker
Most of the country's worst drink-drivers are men - but police are alarmed that more women loaded with alcohol are getting behind the wheel.
A week ago a 27-year-old unemployed woman was caught driving with nearly five times the legal limit of alcohol in her system.
A concerned motorist followed her for about 4km before managing to snatch her keys and get her off the road.
When police arrived they were astounded. The woman, who was allegedly on her way to see her AA adviser, was asleep, slumped over the wheel.
When she woke she struggled to talk and couldn't stand or sit upright on her own. She blew 1943mcg a litre of breath, a reading some police say should have killed her.
One Auckland traffic sergeant said he had not seen such a high reading in his 21 years as an officer. Some media said it was the highest breath-alcohol reading ever recorded.
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