6.2 Alcohol, Seat Belts & Mobile Phones

6.2 Alcohol, Seat Belts & Mobile Phones

Quick Answer: The legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit in Ghana is 0.05% (0.5 grams of alcohol per litre of blood), lowered from 0.08% by the Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2025 (Act 1153). Driving at or above it is a criminal offence. Seat belts are compulsory for the driver and all passengers wherever belts are fitted, and using a hand-held mobile phone while driving is prohibited.

The Legal Alcohol Limit: 0.05% BAC

Blood alcohol concentration (BAC) measures the amount of alcohol in your bloodstream. Ghana's limit is 0.05%, equivalent to 0.5 grams per litre. The limit was 0.08% until Parliament passed the Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2025 (Act 1153) in December 2025; the new law came into force in early 2026, bringing Ghana in line with international road-safety practice. The Act fixes the threshold at 0.05 per cent or more measured within two hours of operating or attempting to operate a motor vehicle. The same Act also lowered the minimum age for commercial driving from 25 to 21, brought commercial motorcycles and tricycles into the licensing system, and introduced standards for helmets and child restraints. Two facts follow directly and are heavily tested:

1. Driving with a BAC at or above 0.05% is a criminal offence — not a minor traffic ticket. Conviction can bring a fine, suspension or cancellation of your licence, and imprisonment.
2. The old figure of 0.08% is outdated; any question offering it as the current limit is testing whether you know about Act 1153.

Police can require a driver suspected of drinking to undergo a breath or blood test, and refusing the test is itself treated seriously.

Why There Is No Safe Amount

Alcohol attacks exactly the faculties safe driving depends on, and the damage starts below the legal limit:

• Slower reaction time — the gap between seeing a hazard and touching the brake lengthens, adding metres to your stopping distance.
• Poor judgement — alcohol creates false confidence, so drunk drivers misjudge speed, distance, and gaps, and take risks they would never accept sober.
• Reduced coordination — steering, braking, and gear changes become clumsy and imprecise.
• Blurred and narrowed vision — alcohol weakens both clarity and peripheral vision, especially dangerous at night.

Because impairment is progressive and begins with the first drink, the only genuinely safe rule is: if you plan to drive, do not drink at all. Coffee, cold showers, and fresh air do not sober you up — only time removes alcohol from the blood.

Drugs and Medication

The law treats impairing drugs just like alcohol. That includes illegal substances, but also perfectly legal prescription and over-the-counter medicines that cause drowsiness, dizziness, or blurred vision — many cough syrups, antihistamines, and painkillers fall in this group. Read the label: if a medicine warns against operating machinery, it warns against driving. Driving while impaired by any drug can lead to the same conviction as drink-driving.

Seat Belt Law

Seat belts are the single most effective protection in a crash, and Ghanaian law makes them compulsory:

• The driver and all passengers must wear a seat belt wherever one is fitted, in the front and rear seats alike.
• Children must be appropriately restrained for their size — ideally in a proper child restraint — and young children must not ride in the front seat, where an airbag or impact forces can kill or seriously injure them.
• The driver bears responsibility for the vehicle, so allowing unrestrained passengers is the driver's problem too.

A belt keeps you inside the vehicle's protective shell, spreads crash forces across the strongest parts of the body, and prevents you from being thrown into the windscreen or ejected — the difference, in many crashes, between walking away and not.

Mobile Phones and Other Distractions

Under Regulation 132 of the Road Traffic Regulations, 2026 (L.I. 2519), a driver who holds, uses or operates a mobile phone while driving commits an offence — for calls, texting, or any other purpose. The published offence wording states no hands-free exception, so the safe rule is to leave the phone alone until you have parked. A phone in your hand steals your eyes from the road for seconds at a time; at 50 km/h, glancing at a screen for three seconds means travelling more than 40 metres effectively blind.

The same principle of distraction covers eating, grooming, adjusting the radio, or anything else that takes your hands, eyes, or attention off the task of driving. Penalties for phone use include fines, and where distraction causes a crash the driver faces the far heavier consequences of careless or dangerous driving charges.

Seat Belts and Children: A Quick Reference

The pattern to memorize is wherever fitted, everyone belts up — the law does not excuse rear passengers, and it gives children extra protection rather than less.

Myths the Exam Loves to Bust

• A short trip is not an excuse. Most crashes happen close to home; belts and phone rules apply on every journey, however brief.
• Coffee does not cancel alcohol. Only time lowers your BAC; stimulants just make a tired drunk driver feel more awake.
• Below the limit is not risk-free. The 0.05% line is where the criminal offence begins, not where impairment begins.
• Legal medicine can still be illegal to drive on. The test is impairment, not whether the substance came from a pharmacy.

These three rules — 0.05% BAC, belts for all, no hand-held phone — are short enough to memorize exactly, and they appear on the theory test in one form or another almost every time.