Banning Smoking in Vehicles

ASH Scotland want to ban smoking in vehicles. I doubt that this desire is limited to ASH Scotland, somehow.

An anti-smoking charity has called for a consultation on banning smoking in vehicles in Scotland.

Ash Scotland made the call, along with 32 other recommendations, as part of a strategy to tackle “Scotland’s biggest killer”.

The usual stuff of course. Second-hand smoke. Yet there is no actual hard evidence that second-hand smoke is a killer, let alone the “biggest killer in Scotland”.

Ultimately, though, this is not about health – it is about something much more basic; the right to behave as one wishes in one’s own private space. I don’t smoke, but Mrs L does. She sometimes lights up in the car. Funnily enough, after all these decades, I am still here and my lungs are in fine fettle. Oddly enough, she hasn’t keeled over either, yet listening to the hysteria put about by fake charities such as ASH, one would have thought we would be toast by now. Yet here we are, miraculous survivors of Scotland’s biggest killer. Perhaps they should dissect us to find out what our secret to longevity in the presence of such poisonous fumes is.

A Scottish government spokeswoman said: “While there are currently no plans to extend the smoke-free laws to private cars, the Scottish government is conscious that private cars are now one of the main places for exposure of children to second-hand smoke.”

Are they? What about in the home? Oh, yeah, better not go there.

“In conjunction with our health improvement partners we are continuing to do all we can to highlight the risks posed by second-hand smoke.”

Or in plain English, hectoring, lecturing, bansturbating, lying and generally screeching until they are thick.

The Tobacco Manufacturer’s association injects a word of common sense here:

We discourage adults from smoking around children but the proposal to ban smoking in what is a private space is a step too far and an unwarranted intrusion on individual freedom.

And that is precisely what this issue is about; individual freedom.

In private vehicles adults should be free to smoke, provided they do not light up or smoke in a way that would distract from safe driving.

And that should be an end to the matter, but you can be sure that it won’t be. Expect more shrill demands for curbs on liberty from the anti-smoking brigade in an attempt to justify their funding from the taxpayer pound.

16 Comments

  1. I hated my parents’ smoke as a kid. They took no notice of me, kept the windows firmly closed in the winter and puffed away until I almost threw up. I’m quite sure that my parents’ smoke was a contributory cause to my asthma today.

    Yes, individuals should be free to smoke if, and only if, they don’t impose it on others, and certainly not children.

    The practicality of preventing kids in a car from having to second hand smoke only makes sense if it were banned. It would also be safer for other drivers. I remember my father taking both hands of the wheel to get a fag out of its packet, and I’m quite sure people do that now.

  2. I don’t smoke, yet I have no objection to someone in the vehicle smoking. Should they be banned to protect me? I don’t desire it and don’t need protection from the state.

    I cannot change the way your parents behaved when you were a child – and I would expect people to respect others’ desire not to be subjected to smoke if they make their wishes plain. I’ve yet to come across a smoker who insisted upon lighting up if asked to refrain. But, then, I never ask them to. I don’t care about cigarette smoke one way or the other.

    A ban is not the answer – although a part of me almost wishes it, just to see the backlash. This really would be a ban too far, I suspect.

    As for your final point – the TMA’s quote already covered this. Anything that reduces the driver’s control is driving without due care and attention. That can be as simple as fiddling with the radio or turning round to talk to the passenger in the back. Neither are banned and nor should they be. If such behaviour leads to loss of control there is already the road traffic act in place. Mrs L manages to smoke the occasional roll-up without losing control of the vehicle.

  3. I suppose I didn’t make the real point clear enough. It’s bad enough being a kid in a house of smokers, but being confined in a small car on a long journey leads to a much greater concentration going into developing lungs.

    Forcing kids to inhale smoke is nothing short of child abuse, and unless it is illegal to smoke with kids in the car, some dumbass parents will do it.

    I don’t think kids should have to suffer because their parents are dumbasses, do you?

    As for “I cannot change the way your parents behaved when you were a child”, this is far from the point isn’t it? People still behave that way, and will continue to as people are, more often than not, selfish.

    Of course you may think that these kids should suffer so as not to restrict the liberties of the smoker. I disagree. At that point, there really isn’t much left to say, except this:

    The problem with the left is that they assume no one is reasonable, and the problem with the right is that they assume everyone is reasonable. Unfortunately, the truth lies pretty much in the middle, as always.

  4. I smoke in the car and I have no kids. Nor do I ever have other peoples kids in my car.
    If smoking were banned it would take away my freedom just as much as it would people with children.
    And as I would completely ignore the ban, I would suddenly become a criminal for doing something I have been doing safely for 15 years.

    Brian – Do you have any medical evidence to show SHS contributed to your asthma? You must have seen many a doctor with the condition. Do they say it is so?

  5. Asthma rates have increased relative to smoking rates declining.
    Kids don’t get out in the sun or exercise outside enough anymore ,domestic environments are too clean.
    I suspect that’s nearer.
    My parents smoked too as did most in those days.
    Never did me any harm.
    You could count the kids at my old school who had asthma on both hands.

  6. Bucko,

    Doctors can’t do that. It’s all statistics. There is clinical evidence that associates exposure to smoke as a contributory factor to asthma.

    Just like some people worked with asbestos but did not get asbestosis. Some coal miners did not get silicosis.
    Some smokers don’t get lung cancer or asthma, but there is sufficent statistical evidence to draw the link between cause and effect. (Much more than the suppose global warming that governments throughout the world are spending billions on right now)

    The question is: do you feel lucky?

    OK, you only smoke and drive alone, but the point is, is your ability to do that more important than the health of smoker’s children?

    If you don’t give a rat’s arse, then fair comment. You would then come under the “most people are selfish” category. I find that people with addictions tend to come under the “most selfish” category, like pregnant women drinking or shooting heroin.

    Off-topic a bit, but relevant – I’m curious.

    If tobacco did not contain a drug that gave you a high, but just something to do with your hands, would you still do it if it carried the same risk of cancer?

    Supposing someone gave you a handgun with a computer controlled revolving chamber with approximately the same statistical chance of killing you as smoking. How much money would you need to win to risk a game of Russian Roulette? And is that figure equivalent to a lifetime (however short) of smoking highs?

  7. @Asthma, well lucky you. See my comment about the asbestos workers and miners. Did your school teach you anything about statistics? Thought not.

  8. People still behave that way, and will continue to as people are, more often than not, selfish.

    I’m sure they do and are. It is not a matter for the state, nor is it child abuse. To suggest that it is trivialises real child abuse. There will always be thoughtless, selfish people in this world. If the state went around banning behaviour that is thoughtless and selfish where would it lead? Not a utopia, we can be sure of that.

    You are not the first to suggest that I am of the right. I am neither right nor left and have been accused of being both. Both are the enemies of liberty.

    Asthma has a valid point. Although my parents did not smoke, my grandparents did. I was exposed to smoking throughout my childhood and into early adulthood. I worked through my college years in a busy city pub and came home reeking of smoke. Yet never have I experienced breathing problems. On the other hand, I have a brother in law who suffers asthma, yet it isn’t smoke that sets him off, it’s animal dander.

  9. Sheesh, Longrider, looks like you’ve got your first (newest?) ASH troll. Undefined ‘clinical evidence’ and ‘statistics’ are their magic wands which they use to silence the awkward squad who will insist on relying on actual science and who have this nasty insistence on individual freedom.

    Either that, or Mr Williams really believes what he is says. And that is much scarier.

  10. My own car is one of the very few places that I do not allow smoking under any circumstances.
    Nicotine makes the windows mist up far too easily and is an absolute pig to remove.

    From reading other websites when this first came up a couple of months back, it seems that the bansturbaters are already trying to argue that the car is not a private space as it is on the “public” highway, blah fucking blah…

  11. I can prove that there has been a 40% improvement in the quality of made-up statistics resulting in cleaner air and faster growing hair. But let us not rest on our laurels! We can and will improve that 40%!

  12. Umm…

    It is already illegal in certain circumstances. Take driving instructors. Their car (which is usually their own day to day runabout as well) can’t smoke in it at all because it’s their workplace. And, no, this doesn’t lift when they are off duty because (and I know this from my wife’s personal experience) when the student goes for the test if the examiner an smell that the motor has been smoked in then the instructor is fined. My wife smoked at the time, so did her instructor. He couldn’t light-up because if he had someone in for a test then he’d have to have his motor valetted or he’d be in schtuck.

    I am currently breaking the law. I’m typing this in my shed which is also my place of work and have just lit a ciggie. This is against the law even if no one ever comes in here. No one does. This is my gaff. It is inconceivable that I could be harming anyone else but it’s still illegal.

  13. As a general rule, I didn’t allow smoking in my driving school car. If the learner wanted a fag, we would pull over somewhere and get out for a quick break and discuss the Highway Code while they had their nicotine fix.

    If the smoker is an occasional smoker – like Mrs L, then the likelihood of someone smelling it is remote. I certainly cannot smell it after she has smoked a rollie even moments after she’s put it out.

    All that said, these people are going after more than the workplace. it is another slice off that old salami.

  14. “”OK, you only smoke and drive alone, but the point is, is your ability to do that more important than the health of smoker’s children? “”

    You’re grasping quite a lot with that statement, but if it’s all you’re giving me then I’ll have to say, yes.

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