To think that smoking in a car with children should be made illegal!

[longbay]

Was sitting in my car at the traffic lights, when another car pulled alongside me with a baby (approx 9-12 months) sitting in the back. The man driving the car was smoking. All the windows were up except his which was open a couple of inches.
Firstly I was absolutely shocked that people still smoke near children let alone trapped in a car. Then I felt real anger & rage that I couldn't do anything about what I had seen. AIBU to feel so enraged by that man's behavior? I want to start a petition but wouldn't have a clue how?!

My friend smokes in the car with her dc in it.If I'm meeting her somewhere I always give up a lift and bus or walk it.I've explained calmly and swearily to her why she shouldn't do it,she tells me to get off my high horse so I don't anymore.Her kids her choice.
Hopefully it will be made illegal so she doesn't have a choice in the matter.

I think smokers are demonised beyond all proportion most of the time, but I'd like to see smoking made illegal when driving. Not just because of the passive smoking risk to passengers but because of the potential smoking has to cause accidents.

Many a road accident has been caused by someone fumbling to pick up a dropped lighter, or a cigarette blown back in the through the window.

Banning smoking in a car with children also sends a signal that this is considered dangerous to children's health. While it's permitted, it's implicitly condoned by the state - after all, if it were really harmful to children wouldn't it have been banned?

Yanbu. I think it should be banned - office workers get more protection. If people must smoke, they should try to do so away from children.

I once went to a petting farm which is non-smoking throughout and a man was smoking in front of his son then swore at us when we asked him to stop.

Yanbu. My dad smoked in the car when I was little, me and my dbro had asthma and now I have degenerative lung disease. He did give up later and now is mortified that he did it, but there wasn't the info out there then there is now. There is no excuse at all now for it, but people still do it, just as people still have dc in the back without seat belts and drink drive. It should be banned altogether in cars, as pps said it causes accidents as well as causing lung problems for those who have to breathe it.

I guess the question is how much you want to legislate against less than ideal parenting, as opposed to intentionally abusive parenting.

So vote Labour at the next election.

www.ibtimes.co.uk/labour-would-introduce-ban-smoking-cars-children-1434132

Which tells you all you need to know about the kind of hysterical crap that you and the thread-starter come out with. They also sentence people to death for possessing drugs in the UAE. Nice allies you have there.

Oh no!!!! How on earth do you cope!!! You poor thing!!!

YADNBU Just ban smoking in all cars.

Why? Because you don't like it?

YANBU but I do hope that before you feel it necessary to want to rip someone apart for apparently smoking in a car whilst having a child on board you have checked whether it is a real cigarette or an e-cig, many look the same.

Wallison, I think the point is that places as diverse as some of the Emirates in the UAE, some jurisdictions in the US, Australia, and Canada and South Africa have a ban of this sort (or one that goes further).

In what way do places that the ban goes further? Chopping people's heads off if they only dare to think about lighting up a fag in their car?

For instance, Kuwait bans smoking in cars altogether, and Mauritius bans smoking in any car with a passenger. Other jurisdictions such as Taiwan are considering similar measures.

Google is your friend, hysterical hyperbole doesn't help your argument so much.

Ah yes, Kuwait, Taiwan and the UAE, those well-known bastions of human rights that every civilised country should seek to follow.

Smokers really are the new bogeymen, aren't they?

I imagine they can read the evidence that shows that, even when considered separately, secondhand smoke in a car is significantly associated with chronic bronchitis in children and adolescents. Or the US research that showed that, even wtih the windows down, fans on high and cigarette held near the window, the accumulation of secondhand smoke exceeded that for any other small enclosed space. Or the BMA study that shows that a car's occupants could be exposed to 11 times more toxins than they would encounter in a smoky bar.

Simply becuase a country's overall ideology is not great (and as a feminist I have severe issues with many Middle Eastern states) it's a logical fallacy to conclude that, therefore, everything they do is wrong.

I'm not sure what your problem with Taiwan is, anyway. Unless it's 1982 where you live? Taiwan rates as among the most 'free' in Asia, including on political rights and civil liberties (on which it scores the highest rating awarded by Freedom House).

And yet Taiwanese people sing hymns to their leader. I'm not convinced.

Nor am I convinced by the anti-smoking brigade's studies; how can a space with an open window with a fan on be more harmful than an enclosed space. You talked about hysteria upthread. Pot, kettle.

And Canada, which is considered a bastion of human rights. What's your point?

I wonder if smoking in a car with children present presents more of risk than actually transporting them by car in the first place. Probably not,but one risk is seen as acceptable (currently), the other is demonised.

Telling people to pull over to phone or smoke is all very well, but next time your on a long windy A/B road count the lay-bys. Especially those you'd spot if you didn't know the road.

So because people are too stupid to pull off to the side of the road correctly they should just be allowed to keep exposing their children to second hand smoke? Great logic there. Bit like allowing people to drink and drive or speed since they're going to do it anyway.

Midnite,having a pop at another poster for abuse of logic while you are prepared to equate secondary smoking to drink driving is wee bit hypocritical.

Wallison, your logic is of course unimpeachable, and my mentioning of studies by scientists and medical professionals is of course completely equivalent to your feeling that they probably aren't right and your fondness for exclamation marks and hyperbole to make your point.

I'm generally quite interested in peer reviewed studies and literature reviews, and less in name-calling. I will admit I haven't done the studies myself but I have more faith in the peer review process than in your gut feeling. It is in fact quite shocking that the accumulations of smoke in a car persist to that level - and would probably surprise many people. Though clearly not enough in your case to persuade you of the view that smoking in cars is detrimental to passengers and in particular to children.

Perhaps you'd like to check out the BMA's work, Evans J and Chen Y in Inhalation Toxicology 2009, the Royal College of Physicians, a group of studies in from the US on tobacco smoke concentration in vehicles vs controlled chambers (Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology 1992 has the really interesting one), the Australian Medical Journal, and a host of others I turned up five minutes' worth of Googling, so that you can check out their methodology for yourself and see if it lives up to the exacting standards of your gut feeling.

But then, I'm open to others' evidenced points of view rather than deciding that Taiwan is a country full of human rights abuses with no apparent evidence beyond an anecdote about a song, so what would I know? (By the way, have you checked out the British national anthem recently?)

Redbinneo, well, if you're transporting them by car anyway of course it is safer not to smoke while doing it. I suspect the same is true of transporting them by foot (a number of jurisdictions ban smoking within a certain distance of children's playgrounds or public buildings). And there is evidence (eg a study by the Monash University Accident Research Centre) that smoking while driving increases the risk of a crash.

It should go further and be a blanket ban. If the smoker is alone then he/she is driving and therefore not in full control. If he/she is a passenger then he/she is inflicting secondhand smoke on at least one other person.

"Enforcement" is not too much of an issue. Most people choose to obey the law just because it is the law. There will always be some who don't and eventually the law will catch up with them.

I remember when smoking was first banned on flights, there was a cry about human rights and how could smokers go 7 or 8 hours without a cigarette. Well, somehow they manage. They will learn to cope without their cigarettes on car journeys soon enough. (And it could even benefit their own health)

Surely they could just get a fine (and mmaybe points) - that would be a reasonable penalty.