Determinants of drink-driving and association between drink-driving and road traffic fatalities in Ghana
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Summary
This study investigates the determinants of drink-driving and its association with road traffic fatalities in Ghana, addressing a critical gap in alcohol-related road safety research within developing nations. While road traffic crashes disproportionately affect developing countries, data on alcohol impairment in Ghana has been scarce. The authors aimed to identify key risk factors for driving under the influence and quantify the relationship between roadside alcohol prevalence and crash severity to inform targeted interventions. The researchers employed a cross-sectional design, conducting roadside breath tests on 2,736 randomly selected motorists across five major cities and inter-urban highways between November 2011 and March 2012. Participants were selected using systematic random sampling, and data were collected via questionnaires and Breath Alcohol Concentration (BrAC) tests, which were converted to Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) using a standard partition ratio. Statistical analysis included multivariable logistic regression to identify predictors of drink-driving and bivariate logistic regression to assess the association between drink-driving prevalence and road traffic fatalities, using crash data from the Building and Road Research Institute. The results indicated that 8.7% of drivers tested positive for alcohol, with 5.5% exceeding the legal BAC limit of 0.08%. Significant determinants of drink-driving included lower educational attainment, younger age, and vehicle type. Illiterate drivers were 1.8 times more likely to drink-drive than those with basic education, and drivers aged 18–39 showed elevated likelihoods compared to older adults. Truck drivers had significantly higher odds of impairment (OR = 1.81) compared to car drivers, whereas commercial car drivers had a 41% lower likelihood of drink-driving than private car drivers. Furthermore, a strong positive association was found between alcohol prevalence and fatalities; a 1% increase in the proportion of drivers exceeding the legal BAC limit was associated with a 4% increase in road traffic fatalities. The study concludes that weak enforcement and low public awareness contribute to high drink-driving rates in Ghana. The authors recommend scaling up randomized roadside breath testing to increase the certainty of apprehension. Additionally, they suggest defining and labeling "standard drinks" to improve public understanding of alcohol consumption limits, increasing the minimum legal drinking age, and lowering the legal BAC limit for youth and novice drivers. These measures are proposed to reduce the prevalence of drink-driving and mitigate associated road traffic injuries and fatalities.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-20 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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