Police say the fact more men than women are caught drunk behind the wheel on Western Bay roads could be a result of tradition, Kiwi culture and the hard-to-break habits of a lifetime.
Until July this year there were 606 males caught drink driving in the Western Bay, nearly three times
the number of females.
Officer in charge of road policing in the Western Bay, Acting Senior Sergeant Mark Holmes, said males tended to be more reckless than females.
"They live for the day, they don't tend to think of the consequences."
While the highest number of drink-drivers in the Western Bay are males aged between 15 and 24, Mr Holmes said the highest number of recidivist drink-drivers traditionally came from the older generation.
"Quite often a lot of the older ones are quite surprised when they are caught and they blow over [the limit]. They seem to think it's acceptable in a way."
He said a lot of these men had grown up in an era where drink-driving was an accepted practice in New Zealand and there was far less traffic on the roads.
"They may have been just as bad in their younger years."
He said it was the older male drivers who usually asked police why they weren't out "catching some real criminals".
Mr Holmes said his response was to ask them how many people were killed on New Zealand roads compared with how many were murder victims.
He said there was also a "young guys and their cars" culture in New Zealand which dated back to the 1960s, meaning males generally spent more time in cars than females. Hand-in-hand with this was the Kiwi "few beers with your mates and drive home" mentality.
Mr Holmes said tradition meant if a couple went out drinking together it was usually the man who drove. "I don't know why but the guy tends to hop in the driver's seat."
However, he said sometimes females were caught drink-driving after opting to drive their drunk partners home.
Tauranga clinical psychologist Hans Laven said it was possible that the higher proportion of men caught drink-driving was because more men were on the road at the time of checkpoints.
But if the number of men caught was still out of proportion, he said it could be because of a "bloke culture tendency" of buying rounds.
"Drinking and bravado is more of a male thing than a female thing," Mr Laven said.
"It could be to do with things like men being less cautious and less conservative. Men tend to be more rebellious anyway."
Police say the fact more men than women are caught drunk behind the wheel on Western Bay roads could be a result of tradition, Kiwi culture and the hard-to-break habits of a lifetime.
Until July this year there were 606 males caught drink driving in the Western Bay, nearly three times
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