If you're going to ban it in all cars, do it because it's a distraction while driving, not because of health reasons.
If people want to fill their lungs with tar, then that's up to them.

I think it's obvious everyone is agreed if you have kids, don't light up anywhere near them. On an entire ban, I still think smoking has no benefits so it should be banned, however I have come to the decision if you want to light up in your car or home and slowly commit suicide then that's your choice.

They should ban children in cars.

Not only do they distract the driver risking fatal accidents, but our roads are polluted with toxic particulates and gases which are known to cause cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Children are particularly at risk, and studies have proven that children growing up in less polluted areas are less likely to develop asthma:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 074480.ece



The verdict is clear. If you drive your children around, you are abusing them.

I'm unsure of your point, are you attempting to justify smoking in a car with a child passenger?

Yes but you would be amazed how many do not even heed that advice.

Obviously not. My point is, children should not be in cars in the first place. It's just so obviously immoral I can't understand how anyone could ever put their children at such risk.

If you ban children from cars, then smoking in cars become totally irrelevant.

If the government was genuinely concerned for children's health, it would be focussing on air pollution and other primary causes of disease rather than extending an increasingly arbitrary prohibition.

I never have children in my car. Banning me from smoking in it on the grounds of "it might hurt the imaginary children" is preposterous.

I found a dead fag end under the driver seat of my car last summer. I was disgusted, partly because it was there, but also that the car looked like it had not been smoked in. I also had touched the offending article. Who know where it had been.

In my experience, if a car has been smoked it, it gains a “fagnolia” colour scheme inside, so at least this one is not polluted in that way.

But you aren't allowed to eat, drink or use a phone in a car either (and the new hands-free system in my car is integrated into the steering wheel) whilst it is in motion. Why should smoking be any different?

Okay, the police mostly ignore people eating or drinking in their cars, but it is theoretically illegal and could get you a fine, why not put smoking on the same level?


So, before setting off, you get the right number of cigarettes out of the packet and line them up somewhere, where they won't roll away, so they are right at hand, without having to fumble with the packet?


But with changing gear, you are still concentrating on driving, with a cigarette, you are fumbling in the packet, trying to wave a heat source in front of your face, without burning yourself, then, when smoking, you are trying to not drop fag ash on yourself and try and aim for the ashtray... I've seen enough cars with burn marks in the seat to know that it doesn't always work smoothly.

On top of that you are consuming a drug which alters your mental state...

BTW, my last 2 automatics were cheaper than the last 2 manual cars I bought.


Just after my brother passed his test, a women drove him off the road, he ended up driving through somebody's front garden! He managed to turn round and catch up with her. Her pulled her over and asked her, what the hell she thought she was doing. She said she hadn't seen him, with 4 kids in the car, how did he expect her to keep an eye on the road! He reached in and grabbed the keys and threw them away!

I went bowling at the weekend and my friend drove, he is a smoker, but he did resist from smoking in the car (both my brother and I are non-smokers), but the car still stank, as did our clothes after the journey... That said, I was grateful, that he did resist smoking in the car, for our sake.

+1

You cant ban on the distraction grounds unless you also ban kids, other passengers, radios, music as they are all greater distractions IMHO.

Smoking is a distraction. Finding a lighter, lighting the fag, dropping it between your legs and and doing the 'dance' in a blind panic to find it , flicking it out the window only for it to land on the backseat.... I've done them all and although never crashed it does for a very brief time take my concentration off the road. Thats not to say smoking is the only distraction in the car, there are lots of others.

I dont think it should be banned on these grounds at all though. Yes ban it in cars where children are present (if these parents are too clueless to realise how bad this is themselves) but leave the rest of the smokers to do it in their own car if they please.

Then don't ban it. Simple.

Does anyone know how many children smoke? A genuine question, I don't know.

Get your children to spark up for you.

They won't be passive smoking and you won't be distracted by having to light up.