Women drivers could force a draconian drink-driving limit on us. Why not set a higher limit for men?

Drink-driving is back. Which isn’t to say it’s on the rise – quite the contrary –but it’s high on the agenda at every level of government. The Department for Transport has recently stopped offering an alternative to the notoriously inaccurate roadside breathalyser. In Scotland the limit was reduced last year from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to just 50. This was controversial because it means that a pint, depending on alcohol percentage, could put you over the limit. Now the Police Federation has called for the drink-drive limit to be similarly lowered in England and Wales – and it’s all the fault of women, apparently. The organisation believes that the law needs to be strengthened to deter the fairer sex from committing the offence. This despite the fact that in 2012 less than a fifth of prosecutions involved female drivers. The Police Federation believes that men have changed their drinking habits, but women haven’t.