smoking in cars ban?

[ivykaty44]

Will it actually work? I can't see that many people smoke around children anyway and those that do will not stop due to legislation anyway, then if people haven't been policed about mobile phones it will be even harder with smoking.

I am not a smoker and don't think people should allow smoking around children but can't see this having any effect

[ProfPlumSpeaking]

Sparklingbrook

[KarmaVersusGeorgeOsbourne]

I'm completely in favour of the ban. Smoking in cars is disgusting. I live in an area where a lot of people still seem to smoke, inside their cars included. I know someone who does, and both their 5 year old and their 4 month old stink of smoke. They are otherwise sane, sensible people, but when smoking comes into the picture, it is cigarettes first, children second.

[KatnipEvergreen]

I think smoking in a car should be banned whether you have children in there or not. If you're lighting a fag and puffing away on it you are not concentrating on driving. I can't see how it's any different to holding a phone to your ear.

For road safety purposes we should probably ban children from being carried in road vehicles. Then no children would be killed in cars.

They must be the biggest distraction there is.

[Poloholo]

BoffinMumn for stats the BMA said in 2011 that there was up to 11 times the toxins in a smoky car compared to a smoky room. Given the relative air space in a car v room sounds plausible. Appreciate that doesn't as of itself show a link to increased child health but would make sense that if you wanted to reduce them, banning smoking in cars would be a logical next step.

web2.bma.org.uk/pressrel.nsf/wlu/SGOY-8NMEYV?OpenDocument&vw=wfmms

[KatnipEvergreen]

Also it would stop them having to breathe in exhaust fumes through the air vents in the car.

In fact just petrol/diesel ban cars and reduce air pollution massively and cut carbon emissions.

[KatnipEvergreen]

The last sentence was not necessarily in the right order. I'm sure you can work it out.

[MiniTheMinx]

If other drugs can be made illegal, make smoking illegal, job done.

You can't pit ones right to smoke over another's right not to inhale second hand smoke or the other way around. If it is legal to smoke, then one's right not to inhale second hand smoke can't be used to trump another's right to smoke.

Obv those that smoke do not have the right to do so when it infringes upon another's right not to inhale smoke, but then equally because smoking is legal, I shouldn't put myself in a car/home with a person who is smoking and then claim that they have infringed upon my right not to inhale second hand smoke, to make this claim infringes upon their right to smoke.

Neither claim can take precedence over the other, unless of course either is forced. In the case of children, they are not actively able to enforce their rights. Which is why this law makes sense, but it should be applied across the board in all environments where a person who lacks the capacity to enforce their own rights, should have that right upheld by the law.

Of course parents will/and do smoke over their children, will do so out of sight in their own homes but the rights of those children, will not be upheld by this law.

Either make smoking illegal and accept that some people make silly and unhealthy choices, so their actions must be curtailed, or not. You can't legislate for stupidity and its unethical to take revenue from drugs, and then use that money to police the victims of your own greed and policy.

[ProfPlumSpeaking]

katnip the thing is that there is a social good from having DC in cars (you take them to school, or the doctors, or their gran's) to weigh against the risk of them distracting the driver. But the smoking adult in the car is not doing anything socially valuable, they are ONLY presenting a danger. That is why it is proposed to ban one and not the other.

Ditto, cars provide social benefit (people use them to go to work, to visit the sick, to shop for food) so banning them would have its drawbacks. Banning smoking in cars would have NO downside whatsoever.

[DameDeepRedBetty]

The only person who is ever in my car is me. It already mings permanently of wet dog, with an added top layer of fox poo. I have the window open most of the time anyway to let at least some of the pong out. I find having a cigarette occasionally in there far less distracting than the radio or passengers talking or a mobile going off.

[Oblomov]

I too can not see that the police will enforce it.

11 pages of reports for what punishment exactly?

[KarmaVersusGeorgeOsbourne]

I don't see how 'people use their mobile phones anyway, despite the ban' is an excise for not banning cigarettes.

I am constantly hearing people moan because they've been pulled over for using their phone!

[princesscupcakemummyb]

i dont smoke how ever i dont agree with the ban although i dont like smokers around the kids i think if the gov keep banning everything way its going we will need permission to do every thing this is just my opinion of course not intended at anyone :)

[Inertia]

Ah well Peggy, if we are using our 'child of the 70s' families as data, then my family must prove to be the counter-argument to yours. Almost everyone in my family smoked too- and then they died (some as young as in their 40s) of smoking-related illnesses such as cancer, emphysema, and heart attacks. Of those still alive, all have suffered at different times with respiratory illnesses such as severe bronchitis. Of course, this doesn'tt constitute a full set of statistically valid data any more than your family does.

In terms of a ban being unenforceable- I'm not a police officer, but those I know are under pressure to make sure that the crimes they record are solvable / prosecutable in order to avoid having their crime figures deemed unacceptable. Now that so many police traffic cars are equipped with video cameras, it'd be a pretty cut and dried case to demonstrate that somebody was smoking in a car if caught on camera so they'd probably be keen to prosecute anyone caught, it'd improve their figures.

[tallulah]

peggy, you don't believe passive smoking causes harm? Ask Roy Castle's family.

BTW the Earth is round

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

Have none of you heard of multi-tasking?
I agree about banning children from cars, as they are very distracting. And ban people from picking their noses at traffic lights, as that is distracting for other drivers, not to mention disgusting.

[MandaHugNKiss]

I'm neither lawyer nor law enforcement, however: if eating an apple was upheld (undue care and attention, I should imagine?) then the same would apply to any policeman wishing to pull over a smoker regardless of children in the vehicle.

For those of you who are more focused on the children being protected surely it should be illegal for a pregnant woman to smoke?! Why does her right to smoke trump the rights of an unborn child who can't even have the windows open? Toxins straight into the bloodstream thankyouverymuch, no need for pesky lungs to filter it. Obviously, the law would only apply post 24 weeks And, hey, if a person is caught speeding with a child in the vehicle then their punishment ought to be more severe too?

And the next step, of course, is the right to enter your home to check you're not smoking in a small room that contains children. Maybe multiple smokers, and multiple children.

Devil's advocate. Kinda.

[ContentedSidewinder]

I welcome the ban, I had both parents smoke in the car when I was little and would have loved it to have stopped. The house was bad enough, but the car was very confined, I hated the smell and the taste.

My Mum died of lung cancer, I watched her suck her last breath into those disease infested lungs of hers; my siblings and I watched on in abject horror at the suffering. She was 62.

And yes, having worked in a school, children of some smokers absolutely reek of smoke on their clothes and their hair. Heartbreaking.

[merrymouse]

Sorry if somebody has already said this but you can already be fined and given penalty points for smoking while driving - it comes under driving without due care and attention.

Presumably this legislation would also apply to passengers.

[Sparklingbrook]

Contended at having to go to school stinking of cigarettes.

I often help DS1 with his paper round. there's one house that as you open the letterbox the smell of cigarettes takes your breath away. I hate to think what it's like in there-and yes, there are children living there.

[MiniTheMinx]

MandaHugNKiss, yep yep yep.

If smoking is a public health matter, make it illegal everywhere to everyone. I say that as someone who smokes. Its not ethical to take revenue from the sale of drugs and then impose stupid laws that infringe upon the persons right to do something which is basically legal. It may protect children in cars but it won't protect children in their homes. It may of course also raise money in fines which is possibly something which commends it to those who wish to legislate, but this aint about public health.

[Chigley1]

I can tell which of my pupils have parents that smoke, even if I've never met them. You can smell it on the child, on their homework, everything.

[BirthdayMuppet]

Those who are still smoking in their cars when their children are also present won't give a rats ass what the law says. The information and advertising and social stigma has been out there for years, anyone still doing it is either stupid or narcissistic...

[BusBipBop]

Read the thread, was all ready to get uppity at a blanket ban. But yes - I agree with the ban when children are in the car.

I'd love to know why someone wouldn't.

[MiddleAgeMiddleEngland]

Smoking is vile. I actually had to stop cuddling a child - totally legitimate reason for the cuddle, at work - because he stunk of smoke. He was 2 and a half. A colleague put him in spare clothes, and handed the smelly ones back to Dad later.

Why can't all smoking be banned? It's revolting, disgusting and a massive drain on the NHS.

[flipchart]

I think it is a poor state of affairs when the government have to think about introducing a law to keep smoking in cars away from children.

Where's the common sense in some people? I would have thought it was blindingly obvious a stupid thing to do/