Chicago DUI lawyer comments on increase in DUI's amongst women

This Chicago DUI lawyer has had more than a few women as clients. They tend to be of all ages and races but they tend to be working professionals with no other criminal background. In a sign of gender equity, NHTSA and the FBI have concluded that there is a substantial increase in the number of women being charged with DUI over the last five years. I've even posted on the phenomenom of women with children in the car charged with DUI here.

August 7, New York City, NY

It seemed too horrendous even to imagine. But the case of the mother who caused a deadly wrong-way crash while drunk and stoned is part of a disturbing trend: Women in the U.S. are drinking more, and drunken-driving arrests among women are rising rapidly while falling among men.

And some of those women, as in the New York case, are getting behind the wheel with kids in the back.

Men still drink more than women and are responsible for more drunken-driving cases. But the gap is narrowing, and among the reasons cited are that women are feeling greater pressures at work and home, they are driving more, and they are behaving more recklessly.

''Younger women feel more empowered, more equal to men, and have been beginning to exhibit the same uninhibited behaviors as men,'' said Chris Cochran of the California Office of Traffic Safety.

Another possible reason cited for the rising arrests: Police are less likely to let women off the hook these days.

Nationwide, the number of women arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs was 28.8 percent higher in 2007 than it was in 1998, while the number of men arrested was 7.5 percent lower, according to FBI figures that cover about 56 percent of the country. (Despite the incomplete sample, Alfred Blumstein, a Carnegie Mellon Universitycriminologist, said the trend probably holds true for the country as a whole.)

''Women are picking up some of the dangerously bad habits of men,'' said Chuck Hurley, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

In New York's Westchester County, where Diane Schuler's crash killed her and seven other people last month, the number of women arrested for drunken driving is up 2 percent this year, and officers said they are noticing more women with children in the back seat.

Nearly 250 youngsters were killed in alcohol-related crashes in the U.S. in 2007, and most of them were passengers in the car with the impaired driver, according to the National Highway Safety Administration.

Arrests of drunken mothers with children in the car remain rare, but police officers can generally list a few.

In the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's daughter was stopped by police after she pulled away from a McDonald's with three of her kids in the car. She pleaded guilty to drunken driving and was sentenced to 18 months of court supervision.

Obviously, drunk driving can lead to tragedies. During this season of weddings and cookouts, where alcohol and children are not uncommon it is important to remember to avoid drinking or using drugs (even if you have a prescription for them) and driving.