Alcohol, Drugs, Fitness to Drive & Road Safety

Blood alcohol limits

The general limit is 0.5 grams of alcohol per litre of blood. A stricter limit of 0.2 g/l applies specifically to professional drivers — holders of bus, coach, truck, and paid-passenger-transport licences. Provisional and novice drivers stay at the standard 0.5 g/l limit; what changes for them is the penalty, not the limit itself (see Chapter 13).

What happens if you're over the limit

At the highest tier, repeat offenders and very high readings can also lead to a mandatory alcohol interlock — a breathalyzer wired to the ignition that prevents the car from starting if it detects alcohol.

Roadside testing

Police may stop and breath-test any driver at any time — no suspicion of drinking is required, and routine checks are entirely lawful. You may ask to wait 15 minutes before blowing. Refusing the test without a valid medical reason is itself an offence, and is treated exactly like testing positive at the highest tier.

Breath test, then breath analysis: two different steps

Think of the roadside breath test as a first pass, not a verdict: you blow into a handheld unit for a few seconds, steadily, until its flashing light settles — a steady whistle tone is your signal that you're blowing correctly. What comes back is only a rough read, shown as one letter rather than a number. 'S' means you're under the limit and free to carry on driving. 'A' or 'P' both mean a positive reading — 'A' sits in the lower band, 'P' in the higher one — but neither, on its own, holds up as legal proof; that only comes from a follow-up breath analysis, run on a more sensitive machine that prints your precise figure onto a slip you get to keep. Turning down the roadside test itself, without a genuine medical excuse, doesn't get you out of anything — it's simply logged as a 'P' and triggers the same immediate 6-hour ban.

Drugs: zero tolerance

When it comes to illegal drugs — cannabis and its THC, cocaine, amphetamines, MDMA, opiates — Belgian law doesn't ask whether you're actually impaired, only whether there's a trace at all; any detectable amount counts as an offence on its own. The roadside check is a saliva swab, and a positive reading gets confirmed afterward with a lab blood test. Test positive on the saliva swab, or turn it down without a real medical reason, and the outcome is the same either way: your licence is surrendered on the spot for 12 hours, with the possibility of an outright withdrawal layered on top, and a second saliva test waits for you once those 12 hours are up. Beyond that immediate response, a court can still hand down a driving ban running anywhere from months to years.

Medication and fitness to drive

Driving while impaired by legal medication — sedatives, strong painkillers, some allergy or anxiety treatments — is treated just as seriously as driving under alcohol or drugs. Neighbouring countries mark this risk with a pictogram on the packaging; Belgium does not yet require this, so it's on you to check the package leaflet or ask your doctor or pharmacist whether a medicine affects your ability to drive safely.

Mobile phones and distraction

Holding a phone to call, text, or browse while driving is forbidden — and this still applies when you're stopped in traffic or at a red light, since sitting in traffic is not the same as being parked. A hands-free system is legally allowed, though it still divides your attention and is best kept brief.

Seatbelts and child restraints

A seatbelt is compulsory in every seat that has one, front or rear. Any child under 135 cm tall, regardless of age, needs an approved child restraint system suited to their size. A child under that height generally may not sit in the front seat, unless a correctly fitted child seat is used there — with the airbag deactivated if it's rear-facing — or unless there is no usable rear seat.

The general duty of fitness to drive

Beyond alcohol and drugs, the law requires every driver to have the physical fitness, knowledge, and control needed to drive safely at all times. This covers fatigue and illness too — driving dangerously tired is a violation in its own right, even with zero alcohol involved. On a long journey, plan regular breaks well before tiredness sets in.

Duty after an accident

If you are involved in a traffic accident, stop, protect the scene — hazard lights, a warning triangle, a hi-vis vest before getting out — and help anyone injured, calling 112 whenever someone is hurt. Exchange identification and insurance details with the other party, normally using a European accident statement form. The police only need to attend accidents involving injury; damage-only collisions are usually settled directly between the drivers and their insurers.

• The European accident statement isn't one form, it's two halves with different rules. The front half — sketching out how the roads met, which way each car was headed, exactly where the vehicles sat the instant they collided, whatever signs or lights were in play, and the street names — gets worked out and signed by both drivers standing there together, because putting your name to it means you're vouching for what it says. The back half works the opposite way: each driver fills theirs in alone, whenever suits them afterward — at home that evening, say.
• Staying put at the scene isn't optional. Once you've turned 15, showing your identity card is something you owe the other party if they ask for it. Should the two of you disagree about what happened, or should someone flatly refuse to put their signature on the form, that's when you bring in the police — and if they can't make it out to you, the obligation shifts to you: get to a police station yourself and report it as soon as you reasonably can.
• Clip a parked car or someone else's property and can't track down whoever owns it? The obligation doesn't disappear — make a genuine effort to leave your contact details behind, or failing that, let the police know instead.
• If the other driver asks, you only have to show your identity card — not your driving licence or your vehicle's registration documents, even though you must always carry those with you too.
• Once you've left the scene, the situation sketch is final — you may not add anything to it later, even if you realise at home that something important, like a sign, is missing.

Leaving the scene: a separate, serious offence

Driving away after causing or contributing to an accident, in order to avoid being identified, is a separate criminal offence — regardless of who was actually at fault in the accident itself. It applies even to minor damage, such as clipping a parked car or a road sign. Penalties scale with the harm caused, up to several years in the most serious cases, and can include a lengthy driving ban.

Calling for help: assess first, then call

Resist the urge to dial before you've actually taken stock — the dispatcher is going to run through the same handful of questions regardless, so working out the answers first saves time: your location, whether anyone's hurt and how badly it looks, whether someone's pinned inside a vehicle, and whether fire has broken out or might. From there, one number covers the whole of Europe — 112 — and dialling it puts the police in the loop automatically; an accident with anyone injured always brings them out to record what happened officially.

F62 — emergency telephone, marks the SOS points spaced along a tunnel wall or motorway

Helping someone who's injured

• If a casualty is struggling to breathe, your first move is to clear their airway — check their mouth for any obstruction or vomit and remove it — before you move them or even call for help.
• Resist moving an injured person with your own hands unless leaving them where they are would genuinely cost a life — a broken bone or bleeding you can't see could easily be made worse by shifting them.
• A motorcyclist's helmet should stay right where it is — the exception being if they're struggling to breathe or bringing something up, at which point it has to come off.
• Nothing goes into an injured person's mouth — no water, however thirsty they seem, and no medication of any kind, painkillers included.
• A wound that's bleeding heavily calls for a clean cloth pressed over it, or a proper pressure bandage — steer clear of tying anything tight around the limb itself; a pressure bandage does the job of stopping the bleeding without that risk.

Medically unfit to drive

Should a doctor determine you're no longer fit — physically, mentally, or both — to get behind the wheel, the obligation to report that falls on you: notify your municipality within four days of the decision, a window that skips over weekends and public holidays. Getting your licence back afterward hinges on a fresh fitness certificate from a doctor stating you're cleared to drive again.

Driving through tunnels

Tunnels run darker inside than the road leading up to them, which is reason enough to lose the sunglasses and switch to dipped beam well before the entrance swallows you — not right as you cross the threshold, and certainly not once you're already inside. Leave it too late and, to the driver behind you, it reads exactly like you've hit the brakes out of nowhere — enough to startle them into a genuine shock reaction.

F8 — tunnel ahead of at least 500 metres long, often with a sub-plate showing the exact length or the tunnel's name