bid to ban smoking in cars.

[hecAteTheirBrains]

story here

I think it SHOULD be illegal to smoke in a confined space like a car when a child is there. Passive smoking is dangerous and very unpleasant.

However, I don't see how it's enforceable tbh, and I don't agree with a blanket ban on smoking in cars, if you are on your own, in your own car, then it's up to you, surely?

What next, a ban on smoking in your own home? (maybe if you have kids you should be made to smoke outside though )

Smoking is filthy, dangerous and it is wrong to inflict it on non-smokers, however the government has the option of making it illegal and forfeiting all that cash they make in tax!

• and I say all this as a (psst, don't tell anyone ) secret smoker.

3000? Dead? are you sure?

I thought the figure 300 rings a bell, as it's almost one a day but not quite

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3603439.stm 3000 was the figure in 2004 for the world.
Over 40000 of them are in the States.

its 10 a day.
here

Ooops, that was meant to be 400000

and here here

does my head in that its 10 families a day that lose a loved one due to cars.

Don't know about smoking, but I WISH they would ban TV crews interviewing people while they are driving a car! Every documentary these days seems to include shots of the interviewee driving whilst talking to camera (okay they don't usually look at it too much, but they must be distracted) - Who do you think you are is particularly bad, but there are loads of others.

And that's just accidents yes? not counting the poisons being pumped out?

Even though I said it to make a point, it does make sense to cut down on cars. But people will say their right to drive is more important than anything else. The reason I mention it often is that some of those saying that are the same ones saying smokers should stop for the sake of others.

yeah. If everyone had to pay the true cost of cars, icluding pollution clean up, wars for oil, hospital reatment and rehabilitation for victims etc etc no-one would be able to afford to drive. But its invisible as it comes out of our taxes.
In real terms cost of driving has gone down and is heavily subsidised.
We need a wide ranging and decent public transport netowrk.

no screaming kids
no radio
no changing cd
or listening to a cd
no eating a boiled sweet

Of course if you didn't have the distraction of nice music or a cigarette you might think about your life.

"Oh god! not another day in this crappy job"

and decide to end it all by driving really fast with your eyes closed.

I used to feel like that for years, but since I was on a number 58 bus it was relatively harmless. I did once tear up my ticket as an act of rebellion.

no thinking

NO ROWING BEFORE GETTING INTO CAR

I'm in favour of banning cigarette lighters in the car - very few of us use them and they are bloody dangerous.

But I think we do all sorts of bad stuff while driving and you can't legislate for everything. After all most blokes drive around scratching their bollocks and fantasising about sex but you can't ban that can you?

Blimey

That's even worse than I thought.

And we just accept it as OK. and everyone's so terrified of paedophiles, but quite sanguine about cars.

Hmm. The consultation paper on bollock scratching is being presented to the select committee today....

Better ban amual cars while we are at it then-all that taking one hand off the wheel to change gear and all that........

manual cars

I wonder why they still make manual cars tbh.

(I've got one, but I still wonder why they bother)

Although my friend who is a policewoman and TA member and has driven all manner of vehicles including tanks, says that there's some reason why manuals are still better. I can't remember exactly why now.

if nothing else - if your a bit too thick to drive a manual - you shouldn't really be expected to drive and look at all those potential hazzards all at once and make split decisions frequently

saw a car yestareday, surely not driven by a MNer - festooned with 'Baby-on-Board type stickers persumably to make the rest of us reckelss drivers sapre that one with the precious babe in - and the woman @ the wheel puffing away with all the windows closed - so SHE clearly does not give a ff for her baby's health

I am a reasonable person and cannot believe that anyone would argue that smoking in a car with a child in it is in any other than unnecessary.

Passive smoking is undeniably unhealthy.

waiting until you are out of a car to smoke is undeniably not that difficult.

why not ban it?

Because grown ups get to run their own lives, make their own decisions about what they do on their own property and take responsibility for those decisions.

I am one of those people who has been injured by a careless driver. He wasn't smoking, just wasn't looking where he was going. And hadn't bothered to get any insurance.

The police did not give a toss. If they can't be bothered to even interview someone who runs over a pedestrian, who admits to a third party that they have no insurance, what is the chance that they will enforce any new law? Unless it comes with a fixed penalty fine, of course, and traffic wardens and other minor officials are allowed to issue it. THEN the buggers will be out en masse.