blood alcohol limits. And it is pushing for laws requiring all first-time offenders to have ignition locking devices that prevent cars from starting until breath samples are analyzed. In the early 1980s, when grass-roots safety groups brought attention to drunk driving, many states required a 0.15 BAC rate to demonstrated intoxication. But over the next 24 years, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other groups pushed states to adopt the 0.08 BAC standard, the last state falling in line in 2004. The number of alcohol-related highway fatalities, meanwhile, dropped from 20,000 in 1980 to 9,878 in 2011, the NTSB said. Drunk-drive blood tests divide Supreme Court In recent years, about 31 percent of all fatal highway accidents were attributed to alcohol impairment, the NTSB said. I think.05 is going to come. How long it takes to get there, we do n't know. But it will happen, said the NTSB's Robert Molloy, who helped guide the staff report. For some, the vote struck close to home. NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt noted that one of his relatives had been killed by a drunk driver and another is serving a 15-year sentence in a related death. Many of the recommendations are going to be unpopular, Sumwalt said. But if we keep doing what we 're doing, we 're not going to make any difference. The NTSB cited research that showed most drivers experience a decline in both cognitive and