The rest of us knew different. After successful petitioning to get us to wear seatbelts, by the 1980s drink driving had become not just illegal, but morally wrong and it was only a deluded minority who thought otherwise.

However, according to latest research, drink driving has crept back into fashion and it's the rise in the number of over-the-limit women which is causing the most concern. In the survey by breakdown company Green Flag and road safety charity Break, 42 per cent of the female motorists questioned said they drove after drinking and 11 per cent confessed they had done so while over legal limits.

Men were no more virtuous. A quarter admitted to getting behind the wheel after drinking more than recommended amounts, but with the number of women convicted of drink driving rising by almost 60 per cent since 1995, it's further confirmation that the situation is on the brink of spiralling out of control.

"There was a fantastic campaign in the 1980s which made drink driving a social taboo," says road safety campaigner Andrew McGavin. "Sadly, that's no longer the case. People have realised the chances of actually getting caught is small. There has been a breakdown in law and order and that coupled with a social change which has seen a rise in the amount women drink means this research unfortunately doesn't come as a massive surprise."

Several high-profile female celebrities like actress Lindsay Lohan and heiress Paris Hilton have been held up as poor role models after being arrested for drink driving – Hilton was later made an example of when she was jailed for 45 days for violating the terms of her probation – but it seems where they've led many others have followed.

Just last month, a 35-year-old woman was found to be four times over the legal limit after her five year-old daughter was seen banging on the windows of the car and shouting "stopping mummy driving". Police described it as the worst case of drink driving they had been involved in, but hundreds of other cases have gone under the radar. "Wine is sold in monstrous measures these days," adds Andrew, who set up the website betterdrivingplease.com to encourage people to record incidents of dangerous driving. "Most people are over the limit after one glass, but there is a growing trend for people to say, 'I've just had the one, I'm sure I'll be okay to drive'.

"People have convinced themselves that it's not the drinking, but the getting caught which is important."

Andrew set up the website after noticing a general decline in driving standards. Research carried out by a similar site in New Zealand showed those reported of poor or dangerous driving were 23 times more
likely of crashing in the 12 months after the incident was logged.

Police now use the resource to send out warning letters to drivers in the hope of preventing future incidents and Andrew hopes eventually British forces will follow suit.

"It seems such a simple thing to do, but at the moment the authorities seem to be obsessed only with fining those caught going 36mph in a 30mph limit," he says. "There are two million people driving around at the moment with false number plates and uninsured, that's one in every 15 cars. Most of them never get caught, but if the police started to tackle this particular problem then it would send out the message that they are back in control of the roads.

"Fifteen years ago, no-one had heard of road rage, but now it's rare to get through a car journey without seeing someone jumping a red light, tailgating or making some kind of offensive gesture. Things are getting out of hand and the number of women drink driving is part of that.

"I'm not sure an advertising campaign, however shocking, would work, what we need is visible action. We need to see patrol cars on the hard
shoulder, we need to hear of people being prosecuted for driving without insurance and, most of all, we need the message that poor driving is unacceptable to percolate down."