Recently, researchers gathered in D.C. to present data on an "epidemic" of female drunk drivers.

Our D.C. DUI lawyers have known for some time that women are being arrested at an increasing rate for impaired driving offenses.

The Transportation Research Board's report, released at its most recent annual conference, was a look at female DUI trends in an effort to answer the "why," after the Traffic Injury Research Foundation found that female DUI arrests rose by approximately 30 percent nationwide between 1998 and 2007.

There are actually numerous reasons for this. For one thing, female drivers outnumber male drivers in the U.S. by about 2 million. More women on the road means of course more are going to be arrested for DUI offenses.

But also, there has been an increase in binge drinking among women, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A survey from that agency found that approximately 15 million women in the U.S. binge drink at least three times monthly. Binge drinking is defined for females as the consumption of four or more drinks in a sitting.

Those most at risk were high schoolers and younger women. About 1 out of every 5 high school females reported excessively drinking in the last month, while about 1 in 8 women ages 18 to 34 reported the same.

The reason for this could be multifaceted, and in no small part to due to the fact that alcohol marketing to women has increased significantly in the past decade. Namely, we've seen a massive unveiling of new products such as fruit-flavored vodkas and spiked lemonade. There is no question, say researchers, that such products are clearly designed and marketed to women.

Similar marketing campaigns are gunning hard for young people too, so it's no surprise that we've seen an increase in youthful, female drinkers.

Studies have proven that women tend to be more risk-averse than men from a neurological standpoint, and drunk driving is certainly a risky behavior. But the transportation board's research, which conducted a series of focus groups involving women who had been arrested for DUI, and found a few common threads. Typically, they fit into one of the following categories:

• Young women who felt pressured by peers to drink
• New mothers who began to binge drink after their babies were born;
• Older women with empty nests, trying to cope with the stresses of ill parents or a recent divorce.

From a DUI attorney's standpoint, cases involving women are treated no differently than men. But it is important for women to understand that they could be more at risk for a DUI arrest than their male counterparts because it is generally going to take less alcohol for them to be legally considered drunk. So your boyfriend or husband could drink the same two glasses of wine you do and not be considered legally drunk, while you will.

Generally, men tend to drink more than women at all ages and stages of life. However, females who have repeat offenses tend to have higher rates of mental illness and other disorders. In those cases, in addition to closely analyzing whether the arrest itself was legal and proper, we can often successfully petition the court to substitute substance abuse or mental health treatment over jail time or in exchange for dropping some of the more serious charges.

If you are facing DUI charges in D.C., contact the Law Office of Daniel A. Gross, PLLC at 202-596-5716.

All the 50-year-old defendant wanted was a few tacos.

Instead, our D.C. DUI lawyers understand, he ended up crashing in a police station parking lot, driving into a fence, leaving his license plate behind, and soon found himself arrested for DUI.

It all seems like something out of a bad stoner movie, but a DUI charge is no laughing matter, nor are the extra penalties he could be facing for leaving the scene of an accident.

Had it not been for that lost license plate, he may have evaded arrest altogether.

The Montgomery County police station is actually just around the corner from the fast food taco restaurant, which was the defendant's destination.

The station actually has two parking lots, one for public use and the other that is private, gate accessible and used primarily for officers' civilian vehicles, as well as cruisers. The latter portion of the lot is surrounded by a 10-foot metal fence with two different gates. One of those gates is chained and padlocked, while the other is only accessible by key card.

On a recent Thursday evening, an officer passing by around 12:30 a.m. happened to notice that one of the normally-chained gates had been torn off and was lying on the ground. The officer looked around a bit more, and found a piece of a vehicle headlight. Nearby, there was a license plate. The officer ran that tag number and turned up the defendant's information, with his apartment less than three miles away.

That officer and another then drove there. In the parking lot, they saw a mangled Explorer -headlight and license plate missing, along with damage to the front bumper - just outside the defendant's dwelling. On their way up to the door, officers found the defendant's wallet on the ground.

They later spoke to the defendant, who agreed to undergo a breathalyzer test, which he failed. He admitted to the officers that he had been drinking vodka and headed out for a quick trip to get some tacos. He is believed to have hit a curb going over a hill and then careened into the police station parking lot, slamming into the gate. Officers don't think he actually made it all the way through the gate and into the private police parking lot. Rather, they surmise he backed up once he'd struck the fence, causing the license plate to be ripped off, before driving away unnoticed. It was, after all, nearly 1 a.m., and not much surveillance around the station.

Perhaps his biggest mistake was answering the door and agreeing to speak with officers. Absent some solid reasoning to believe someone was in imminent danger, they would have first had to obtained a warrant before entering, and the defendant was under no obligation to speak with them either way. Had he done this - or even if officers hadn't noticed the damage until the next day - it's likely the worst he would have faced was leaving the scene of an accident.

If you are facing DUI charges in D.C., contact the Law Office of Daniel A. Gross, PLLC for a free and confidential consultation to discuss your rights or fill out our online contact form. Visa, Mastercard and Discover cards accepted. Call 202-596-5716.