Zero fines for smoking in cars carrying children
Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 8:25 The BBC is reporting that the police have issued zero fines and just six warnings since smoking was banned in cars carrying children.
The information follows an FOI request to 44 police forces, 39 of which replied.
BBC Breakfast invited Forest to respond with a statement and this is what I gave them:
"This is entirely predictable so we're not in the least bit surprised.
"The police have far better things to do than pull over drivers on suspicion they may be smoking with a child in the car.
"It would take x-ray vision or remarkable intuition to tell if there was a small child in the back of a moving car.
"The overwhelming majority of smokers know it's inconsiderate to smoke in a car carrying children so finding someone who does is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
"This is probably one of the most futile and irrelevant laws ever introduced. The Government did it to denormalise smoking but parents who smoke don't need politicians telling them how to behave.
"Laws that are unnecessary or impossible to enforce are not just pointless. They risk bringing the police into disrepute because, through no fault of their own, the police inevitably appear hapless and ineffectual."
I didn't expect them to use more than a sentence or two and I was right. However the single line they used - "This is one of the most futile and irrelevant laws ever introduced" - needed some context.
Instead the programme interviewed two people - a doctor and a police representative. According to the latter an oversight when drafting the legislation had resulted in the police being unable to issue penalty notices. Instead, cases have to be forwarded to the local authority.
PS. The Department of Health is putting a brave face on the stats and is insisting that the priority all along has been to “change behaviour”.
I'll be discussing the subject later on Five Live.
Smoking in cars with children: police 'cannot' enforce ban (BBC News).
Update: Labour MP Alex Cunningham was one of the architects of the ban (if not the architect). He's just tweeted this.
Early slot on @BBCTees to talk about the fact the law against smoking in cars with children can't yet be enforced. Very disappointing.
— Alex Cunningham (@ACunninghamMP) March 15, 2016
Reader Comments (5)
Well the law banning smoking in works vehicles is routinely ignored too. I can name any number of pubs with
multiply illegal smoking areas. Even if these laws were enforced properly, decades of evidence shows us that tobacco control policies have failed to make one jot of difference to lung cancer death rates but all we will get is more of the same voodoo policy think.
There isn't (and never was) a major issue with people smoking ibn cars with children. Despite the lack of risk from second hand smoke, most have been socialized to avid smoking around children, especially is enclosed spaces. This unnecessary law has three purposes: 1) persecute smokers, 2) further denormalise smoking, 3) serve as an incremental step toward a total vehicle smoking ban on the road to total prohibition of tobacco. This trend must be stopped and reversed.
The issue of smoking in cars is particularly overstated. Every smoker knows that when you smoke in a moving vehicle, if you have the window open even just a crack, 99% of the smoke is whipped out of the window immediately. I've checked and re-checked this numerous times since this idiocy first was mooted, and it's always the same. If there is an inch of open space at the top of the window, all sidestream smoke and all exhaled smoke just goes straight out of that small gap. It's always the same. There is, I'm sure, some law of physics that explains this phenomenon, but as we all know, according to the sages of Tobacco Control, tobacco smoke defies all the laws of physics. It can travel through walls, along cabling, defy ventilation systems, remain motionless outside in a high wind, only to seek out some poor unwitting passer-by when the opportunity presents itself, and most miraculous of all, despite not affecting the person drawing the smoke direct into their lungs, can give those who catch a mere whiff an immediate heart attack and, if they survive that, lung cancer.
Verily, 'second-hand smoke' is a quite miraculous substance, on a par with dark matter for its incredible properties. I'm only amazed it hasn't yet been exploited as a weapon of war, used to decimate armies in a way that mustard gas could only dream of.
But maybe I'm wrong. Saddam smoked didn't he? Maybe that was his secret WMD. Subtle, eh?
“There is, I'm sure, some law of physics that explains this phenomenon, ...”
It’s either the laws of slipstream or the Venturi effect. Not quite sure which applies in this instance – perhaps some clever physicist/engineer/general clever clogs reading this blog can clarify. But, either way, you’re right, Nika, smoke will inevitably be pulled straight out of the window as soon as the car starts moving. Works for everything, thankfully – as anyone who has been in a car with an – errr – “windy” dog (or person!) will tell you ...!
Alex Cunningham, MP, eh? Stockton North, an area of intergenerational unemployment, poverty and benefit fraud - and its esteemed MP is concerned about a non-existent problem! Much easier, of course, than trying to change the underlying problems of lack of education, aspiration and lack of inward investment. There again, the electorate appears not to have grasped the politics of voting behaviour and has been voting for Labour for decades despite nothing changing.