Car smoking ban

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

What say you to this proposal?

I'm 100% in favour for this proposal to come into reality.

I honestly cant see why people have a problem with this, if your stupid enough to smoke in a car with a child you deserve more than penalty points.

Its been proven with the 2004 smoking ban that law itself can be enough of a deterrence without wide scale checks and enforcement.

I would be completely in favour of such a law and have believed for years that it should be illegal to smoke in any confined area around children. Anyone who subjects their kids to cigarette smoke full stop is the absolute scum of the earth as far as Im concerned, but especially if they turn their car into gas chamber while their kids are in it.

Beer Baron wrote: »

This government needs to back out of peoples lives.

The people of this country need to grow a few brain cells and be just a little less selfish, so that the government doesn't have to legislate common sense.

I'll bet there are countless morons up and down the entire country, belligerently refusing to obey this law because they think there is no harm in second hand smoke.

When I though it was an outright ban on smoking in cars - Disagreed in the name of freedom
When I saw it was around kids - Agreed

I don't have children and I don't smoke but to me it's probably only dealing with the surface of what's probably a general unhealthy environment for the children. At least in a moving car there's good ventilation with open windows. It's potentially much worse at home with some people's fear of "letting the cold in", keeping windows closed while the central heating is going. If you're going to enforce this, what about an anti junk food law too? No children under the age of 16 can be served in McDonalds etc, parents seen with their toddlers eating a pack of meanies or haribo can be prosecuted too. Along with logging the amount of tv and computer hours a child is exposed to in favour of exercise/social activities

I think the previous generations messed it up and this generation is continuing to mess it up. There should be and should have been education in schools on health. Take away any of the pointless compulsory subjects and classes and replace them with life lessons. How to eat well, drive, light a fire, deal with certain situations, why eating that chocolate bar will only make your acne riddled face worse etc. Things children can benefit from. After 12 years, I only know how to ask permission to go to the toilet in Irish, shouldn't even need to ask permission for such a thing!

What's the story with eating while driving by the way? I remember a story linked to here about a lady in Scotland who was fined for eating an apple while driving? Is there any such laws here and would eating an apple be ok while eating a salad with a fork not be?

This is moronic. Bad parents are going to be bad parents. You can't protect the kids all the time. If the parents smoke in the car, they will smoke around them in the house in confined areas.
Obviously it's easy to just say that the kids should be protected so it's ok for the law to be passed, but this is just another intrusion into people's lives by a government who (just like the last) have shown no proof of ability to control that kind of power.

Jimdagym wrote: »

It's more than that though, to be fair. Lighting the smoke, extinguishing it, and getting rid of the ash all require breaks in concentration from driving.

I don't smoke, but I do eat a lot when driving, I don't find it distracting at all. I find I don't drive as well when I've people in the car and am engaged in conversation. I can't imagine this being tackled in the name of road safety. I think the smoking issue here is more on children's health than road safety though.

senordingdong wrote: »

And just because you can't protect kids all the time doesn't mean you shouldn't try to protect them when you can.

+1

Jimdagym wrote: »

This is moronic. Bad parents are going to be bad parents. You can't protect the kids all the time. If the parents smoke in the car, they will smoke around them in the house in confined areas.

You're probably right, in that smoking in the car is one visible symptom of selfish parents, and they will do it at home as well, but a car is a particularly confined area, and if the demister / fan is on, the smoke will circulate even more rapidly. So for that reason I'd be in favour of this.

Beer Baron wrote: »

Whilst I agree that people shouldn't smoke in the company of children it is NOT the states job to police stupidity.

Is it the State's job to protect children?

I'm a smoker but I don't smoke in my car nor my house. I don't think it's fair for non smokers to have to put up with my smoke so the only place I smoke is outside. I actually can't stand smoking inside because the room gets stuffy and it's a horrible place to be.

I am 100% in favour of this ban coming into effect. The problem is that with the smoking ban in pubs etc., if it happened, there was always someone there to witness it. This won't be the case for an in-car ban and you will most definitely have people doing it anyway.

Personally, I think cigarettes should be banned outright because I don't have the willpower just yet to give them up :pac:

MetzgerMeister wrote: »

Personally, I think cigarettes should be banned outright because I don't have the willpower just yet to give them up :pac:

What, so you could pay €50 a packet to a dealer?;)