The scheme has been in force in New Mexico for first-time and repeat offenders over the past year, during which time there has been an 11.3 per cent decrease in alcohol-linked road deaths.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) called this week for similar changes in traffic laws in America’s other 49 states, some of which already use the so-called ignition interlocks, but only for drivers with multiple convictions. But these devices can be easily circumvented by the driver getting a sober friend to blow into the tube instead.

So car manufacturers and the federal government are reported to be backing research into a new generation of technology for detecting alcohol in a driver’s body. Saab is already testing a device that attaches to a key chain, while other transdermal sensors may be able to read alcohol content when a driver’s palm touches the steering wheel or the gear stick.

Even more advanced versions can detect when a car is weaving down the road while being driven by an impaired driver.

Such technology could be used initially in hire cars or by fleet owners and taxi companies, but eventually it could be expanded to all vehicles.

Glynn Birch, the president of MADD, whose 21-month-old son was killed by a drunken driver in 1988, said: “The real possibility of eliminating drunk driving in this country [the US] is a powerful, even audacious, idea. Yet the tools are now at hand.”

He cited figures showing that the average offender can drive drunk 88 times before being caught for the first time, adding that the US needs to “focus on that problem of separating the drunk driver from the vehicle”.

Although deaths caused by drink-driving have fallen by about 40 per cent since the 1980s, they are still running at more than 1,000 a month in America, prompting some road safety groups to claim that the threat of punishment is no longer working.

Each year there are about 1.5 million arrests for drink- driving but millions of motorists still take to the roads with suspended or revoked licences.

“We’ve seen no progress in ten years. We’re completely stalled,” said Susan Ferguson, of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.