In-car smoking ban - Hate to say I told you so

I hate to say I told you so, but it really wasn't very long ago that I was making predictions on how long it would be before our super-nanny-state started making noises about banning smoking in private cars, and here we are, already writes Emma Suddaby.

You didn't really think I would let this pass without getting stuck in, did you? Regular readers will know me better than that and, despite the certain knowledge that any comment in support of maintaining the freedom to smoke in my own vehicle will bring the anti-smoking brigade down on my head like a tonne of bricks, when have I ever let that stop me?!

Because if anyone out there can give me a good reason why I, as a single, childless driver, should not be allowed to do exactly as I please in my own car that I have paid for myself, insured myself and maintained myself . . .

As long as it harms neither my driving, nor other road-users, perhaps I'd understand what all the fuss is about. But as it stands there is no good reason. I've listened to them all and none of them warrant a blanket ban on smoking in the car.

Of course it would be an unbelievably bad call to spark up when there are kids in the car, when there's anyone else in the car, in fact, you don't have to have a very big brain to understand that.

You know it and I know it, but it's exactly the sort of people who don't seem to know it and who are already smoking with kids aboard now that will continue to smoke with kids aboard . . . whether it's banned or not.

A legal ban will just punish drivers like me who are harming nobody but ourselves, and that's nobody's business but our own, is it?

And if we're going to start worrying about whether a driver can concentrate properly while smoking a cigarette, then perhaps we should be worrying about parents' ability to drive safely with a car-full of cantankerous kids; or eating and drinking, another possible violation of the 'complete concentration' school of driving.

Not only would an in-car smoking ban be morally wrong, it would also be totally unenforceable which leads me to believe it's yet another attempt to bully smokers. And if we haven't worked out for ourselves that smoking is bad for us by now, banning it in the car is not going to force us into doing so, so how's about picking on someone else for a change!