Liability Beyond the Wheel

Most people picture the offence as one thing: being pulled over while driving drunk. The law is wider, in ways that catch people who thought they were being careful.

You don't have to be moving. The offence covers being in charge of or in control of a vehicle, and even attempting to drive. In practice you can be charged while parked, engine off, if you're over the limit behind the wheel with the keys and the apparent intention to drive. The common "I'll sleep it off in the car" plan is exactly where this bites: dozing in the driver's seat with the keys can count as being in charge, while moving to the passenger seat with the keys out of the ignition is a materially safer position. If you're waiting out alcohol in a vehicle, get out of the driver's seat.

Refusing the test is its own offence. Declining to blow when an officer lawfully requires it is a separate charge with its own penalty — not an escape route, a second offence.

An accident can trigger a test, even in hospital. After a crash an officer can require a specimen from anyone they reasonably believe was driving; if that person is a hospital patient, the request goes through the treating doctor, who still decides what is compatible with the patient's care. Being injured doesn't put the question out of reach.

The person who sold the alcohol can be liable too — but narrowly. Kenya's version of "you helped cause this" is more limited than people assume, and it lives in the Alcoholic Drinks Control Act rather than traffic law. A licensed seller commits an offence by serving alcohol to someone already intoxicated or pushing them to drink more, and alcohol advertising may not present drinking as acceptable before or while driving. What this does not do is make a private host automatically guilty for serving a friend who later drives — that broad "host liability" idea comes from other countries' laws and is not established here. So the licensed venue that keeps serving a visibly drunk customer is exposed; the friend at a private gathering is on less certain legal ground, though the moral and practical case is identical.

What it adds up to: the safe zone isn't "under the limit and stationary" — it's not being over the limit in charge of a vehicle at all, not planning to dodge a test, and, if you're hosting or serving, keeping an impaired person away from their keys. One action covers almost every version of this: take the keys — yours or theirs.