Quite apart from the rights and wrongs of smoking in the car, I have to query something.
How would such a ban be enforced?
The police (who would probably have to enforce this) don't necessarily spend their time watching what each individual driver is doing in the care (and they certainly don't watch passengers). They should only be watching the driver if they think the driver is doing something dangerous. As I understand it, even the current mobile phone laws are only really enforced if the police officer happens to notice someone on the phone, or they are doing something dangerous.
If the Police are watching drivers and passengers for signs of smoking, they may miss someone doing something geniunely dangerous to themselves, their passengers and other road users.
It's also likely that CCTV and Speed cameras would be ineffective as they tend to focus on the driver, and unless they are all lowered (and thus be more susceptible to vandalism) to the same level as the car, they would be unable to see any children. Even if they had some sort of ability to see the kids, how would they detect the smoke?
---------- Post added at 17:04 ---------- Previous post was at 16:17 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Saaf_laandon_mo
I have to agree, why do we need a law to stop people smoking in cars with kids. I'd have thought responsible parents would not smoke in a car with kids.
I have a lot of friends who smoke in cars, or in rooms in the presence of their kids. When I comment about this, the respnse I hear the most is "It's not that bad", "wheres the proof that they will get cancer", " I know many people who smoke 20 a day and dont have cancer " etc etc. It does suprise me that such views are used as excuses but I do think that a lo of people still genuinely believe that passive smoking isn't such a big deal.
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As I understand it, a lot of people do think passive smoking is a big deal, but no one can prove conclusively how big a deal it is. One of the things that caught my eye about the study I linked to above is it started when smoking was considered "cool", so numbers of smokers (and therefore passive smokers) should be higher at the beginning. The study concluded (although as foreverwar noted their methodology was challenged) that passive smoking does not contribute as much to lung cancer as people think. Other studies have said the opposite.
While, as I have stated, I do not smoke, and actually would rather not be stuck in a car with a smoker, I agree that people should have a choice. Put simply, as long as the owner of the car is happy for any passengers to smoke and any passenger is happy for the owner to smoke, I don't believe it's anyone else's business (least of all the government's).