Federal transportation-safety officials Tuesday proposed nearly halving drivers' legal blood-alcohol limit to reduce alcohol-related traffic accidents, a move that would mean more drivers could be cited for drinking as little as one beer or glass of wine.

The National Transportation Safety Board recommended states lower the legal alcohol concentration to 0.05% of a person's blood from 0.08%, saying that drinking-related traffic fatalities have remained at about 10,000 annually despite stepped-up enforcement efforts.

"Buzzed or blitzed, it doesn't matter what you call it, if you're drinking, don't drive," NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman told reporters Tuesday. Agency officials say their research shows people start being impaired when their blood-alcohol concentration reaches 0.05%.

Blood-alcohol levels can be influenced by several factors, including a person's size and time since the latest drink or meal. A woman weighing 120 pounds or less could generally reach 0.05% after as little as one drink. A man weighing 160 pounds or less could reach the limit after two or three drinks.

The recommendation faced immediate resistance from the alcoholic-beverage and restaurant industries, which argue that states should focus driving-under-the-influence enforcement efforts on repeat offenders and drivers whose blood-alcohol level is far above the legal limit.

"This is a terrible recommendation," said Sarah Longwell, managing director of the American Beverage Institute, a restaurant trade group. "If we're going to solve the drunk-driving problem, we aren't going to do it by targeting moderate social drinkers."

States began lowering their blood-alcohol limits to 0.08% from 0.1% in the 1980s. The last state to do so was Minnesota, in 2005. A move to 0.05% would bring the U.S. in line with 25 of the 27 nations of the European Union, the NTSB said. While the NTSB doesn't have authority to impose its recommendations, they are closely watched by states and are often adopted.

The federal agency with some authority to impose safety measures—the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—didn't immediately endorse the standards, though a spokesman said NHTSA is interested in ways to reduce the number of drunken drivers. NHTSA can help funnel federal money to states that adopt its safety proposals.

The NTSB made several other proposals Tuesday, including increased use of technology that locks ignitions when a would-be driver is intoxicated. It also has backed technology that would automatically check a driver's blood-alcohol concentration.

Write to Amy Schatz at Amy.Schatz@wsj.com