USA Today reports that states should reduce the blood-alcohol level that qualifies as drunken driving to 0.05 percent to reduce fatal crashes, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended Tuesday. The risk of a crash at 0.05 percent is about half as much as at 0.08 percent, the limit in all states, according to a safety board report released Tuesday. Impaired driving remains “one of the biggest killers in the United States,” said Deborah Hersman, the NTSB chairman. “To make a bold difference will require bold action. But it can be done.”
But the board makes only recommendations to states and the federal government, and can’t make laws or regulations. The Governors Highway Safety Association supports the current alcohol threshold. “When the limit was .10, it was very difficult to get it lowered to .08,” said Jonathan Adkins, a spokesman for the governors group. “We don’t expect any state to go to .05.”