PORTLAND – Maine ranked among the best of states when it comes to alcohol-related deaths in the federal government’s most comprehensive look at drunken driving accidents over the past two decades.

The government study released Wednesday shows the alcohol-related traffic death rate has dropped by more than half during the past 20 years. But it also shows that gains in the fight against drunken driving have been widely disproportionate nationwide.

In addition to Maine, states with the best records were Utah, Vermont, New York, Minnesota, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Virginia, Indiana and California. All came in at or below one-half death for every 100 million vehicle miles.

In Maine, the number of drunken driving-related deaths dropped 63 percent from 1.23 to 0.45 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.

The declining percentage of alcohol-related fatalities came as no surprise to Maine public safety officials who have tracked the trend.

The state noticed a significant drop in the percentage of alcohol-related highway deaths in 1988 when the state lowered the legal blood alcohol limit for driving from 0.1 percent to 0.08 percent, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

And the percentage has dropped each year since then, dropping from 60 percent of the total number of highway deaths 20 years ago to last year’s 24.4 percent, the lowest level recorded in Maine, he said.

“It has been a huge success story over the past 20 years,” McCausland said. “It’s attributable to everyone in law enforcement, including the Legislature, the prosecutors and the police.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration compiled the state-by-state statistics to encourage states at the bottom of the rankings to get tough on motorists who drink.

South Carolina had the highest death rate. Drivers in that state are four times more likely to die in alcohol-related traffic accidents than drivers in Utah, the state with the lowest death rate.