(SA_Steve)
I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life, but I sure inhaled my fair share of my mom’s, dad’s and stepfather’s tobacco when I was a child. Surely one of my earliest developed motor skills was learning how to roll down the window in our Chevy Nova. Now a bill under consideration by the New York State Assembly seeks to put an end to such behavior by fining adults who light up with a child in the vehicle.
The bill would slap a $100 fine on anyone caught smoking in the same vehicle as a child under the age of 14.
Says the State Senator who sponsored the bill:
A child gets in the car where mommy or daddy or Aunt Nancy are smoking and doesn’t have the option of leaving.
I don’t know… The kid could always try to make a break for it at the stoplight.
What do you think of this legislation? Will it do anything to curb smoking around children? Won’t it be difficult to enforce, as cigarettes are easily extinguished and the smoker could claim “I put it out right before I picked up the kid”?
Sound off with your opinions in the comments.
New Law Would Fine You for Smoking in Car with Child [Gothamist]
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I’m more inclined to use a shaming punishment, like making them put a bumper sticker on their car exclaiming they chose cigarettes over their child. As the child of a smoker, I will personally attest that (a) yes, second-hand smoke brings on asthma-like issues; (b) rolling down the window does *not* cause all the smoke to get sucked out; (c) all my breathing issues disappeared when I left the smoking household. Thankfully, smoking is becoming less and less accepted on all levels.
That actually sounds like a much more effective idea than a $100 fine. +1.
How do you feel about branding rapists with giant “R” on their forehead?
It’s already illegal here in Maine. I think it’s a great law!
Sure, why the hell not? There is no reasonable argument for smoking with your kid in the car. It is a know danger to their health and the smokers who do it are lucky all they might get is a small fine. $1000 and a punch in the throat would be better.
People in Texas have been charged with felony child endangerment for smoking pot in a house where a child was present (with others not smoking pot also present, so the pot smoker wasn’t the sole caregiver at the time). Seems like cigarette smoke results in just as much, if not more, endangerment (especially in the more-enclosed space of a car).
the sooner the smoking of tobacco is eradicated from the earth, the better.
I see this law as largely unenforceable, though.
I vote a resounding YES for this. My dad smoked around me all the time when I was growing up- in the car, in the house, everywhere. I now have asthma because of it. I literally want to injure anyone I see smoking around kids & their pets too. YOU have a right to ruin your own damn lungs, your do NOT have the right to ruin your kids’ & your pets’ lungs.
I hate smoking as much as anybody, but if it’s their car and their kids, it’s their choice. Is a kid being exposed to smoke for the duration of a car ride really that much worse than the constant exposure they get at home? That said, I support pulling the parents over and forcibly showing them graphic pictures of the dangers of secondhand smoke.
They shouldn’t be exposing them at home, either. And kids are not the property of the parents to do with as they will. You cannot abuse or neglect your kids, legally, because they have rights that are independent of the parents’ rights.
Yeah the kids cant get up and leave if their parents are smoking in the car with them. But then again children shouldn’t be living on soda pop and fast food, but no one is making parents who feed their children crappy food pay fines? I say its your kid, if you don’t care enough about their future health to smoke around them thats your business. And beyond that you should fine parents who have ever lived in a house with lead paint, sharp corners,stoves or stairs because of the potential hazard. And while you’re at it fine people who have unhealthy habits like drinking/smoking/eating bad food and have children or are at risk to become pregnant or impregnate.
this is an issue the free market can take care of. no need for government involvement in this either.
*facepalm* no more. Enough liberty trouncing laws that force other peoples moral judgments on others. This makes me sick, if this sort of change keeps up the country that was the USA should be pronounced dead, and renamed and refounded as something differnt.
who’s to say the children don’t like the second hand smoke. let’s allow the free market to work this one out.
Another case of government intruding on the private lives of citizens. I’m not saying it’s healthy or OK to smoke around kids, but why is it just fine for government leaders to impose their will on the citizens of this free (not for long) country? We should just all begin learning to goose step now.
It’ll just end up being another law that doesn’t get enforced (enough). Just look at the “no cellphone while driving” law. It’s practically free money to local municipalities but very few officers enforce it. A law is only as good as the enforcer.
I don’t know if there should be a law against it or not, seems kind of unenforceable. I do know that when I was little, I used to put my entire head in the freezer to get a breath of fresh air because the air in our kitchen was blue with cigarette smoke. At first I was too short to get my head in there on my own, so I’d drag a chair over to the fridge so I could reach. I’m sure my family thought it was either cute or that I was nuts, but they knew why I was doing it and didn’t seem to care one tiny iota about my health. My entire family smoked, and we lived with half of them when I was young, so there was no getting away from the smoke. I don’t even know how I didn’t develop asthma from that constant cloud of toxic smoke.
I hate being around cigarette smoke now that I’m an adult, and I stay away from it as much as possible. I don’t mind public smoking as long as it’s not done in a place I can’t walk away from, like train platforms and covered bus shelters. People should at least care about their kids enough to abstain around them.
Parents caught smoking with a kid in the car have to eat the whole pack while the police officer watches
Studies of children at many universities show a definite link to smoke with chronic illness, and mental deprivation. This wouldn’t be bad except tax payers who wouldn’t be that stupid get stuck with the bill. Same goes for children who are allowed to be overweight. My car carries two bumper stickers, smoking is child abuse and an overweight child is child abuse.
I wonder how many of those in agreement in these comments support abortion… I’d hope not. I’d say no. I’m a smoker, but it seems like people want to make non child related decisions for me about how I go about this. I am polite as I can be about it. I don’t have children, but if I did, one does have the ability to make a moral decision, without legislation. Again, as I commonly reply to these threads: Yes, smoking kills. Other things kill too, and I don’t see the support like this in other areas of health and life. Commendable, that you would have such a strong point for children. Non impressive that you probably are lacking in other areas that are more dangerous.
I’m all for this. I grew up with smokers (and my father died of lung cancer a few months ago, at 63). He smoked two packs a day, we did a lot of driving and he smoked in the house, so I smoked at least a pack a day secondhand. I had no escape. When I was a kid I was so used to the smoke it sort of didn’t bother me, until the other kids in school started teasing me for smelling like smoke. In my teen years I developed severe allergies and asthma. I had no safe place in the house other than my bedroom (where smoke still seeped in through the door), and until I had my own car I had to ride/drive in a smokey car, the best I could do was hang my head out the window like a dog. I loved my dad, but hated his disgusting, deadly habit. It would have been really wonderful if there was a law that stopped him from smoking around me. I’m really worried about my risk for lung cancer now.
I agree with the “spirit” of this law, but I do know what the real motivations are behind it. Just like seatbelt laws, speed laws, etc. The main goal is revenue. Police in many areas are required to meet “quotas” and are often rewarded for high ticket revenue. This is just one more thing our corporate-bought-and-paid-for legislators to churn out.
Safety is always just a “pleasant side effect” of any of these laws.
Yes.
No question whatsoever.
Well, if the parent were smoking pot in the car, they would go to jail despite the fact that pot smoke contains fewer carcinogens and other poisons than your typical industrialized cancer stick. No, I’m not advocating making pot legal…don’t lump me into that category…but, instead, making cigarettes illegal.
So this consumerist is anti-tobacco? a LEGAL product in the USA! This ISN”T the place to discuss these matters on a consumer blog. Using this blog for your own agenda is wrong in my opinion. Go create a blog titled “Nanny consumers against liberties”
I’m pretty darn sure my mom smoked while she was pregnant with me and my sister – we were both underweight babies. And we were held hostage in the back of the two door car with the windows up in the rain or severe cold. To this day I hate being around cigarette smoke of any kind. She quit in 85 and it made my childhood so much better. Other kids I knew – had two parents that smoked and they would hack and cough like they were already getting emphesema. Smoking with buns in the oven and in other confined spaces – yeah – it should be outlawed.
In response to the articles title: No.
In response to the title of the article: No.
It was miserable riding in the car with my father when I was younger. He smoked like a chimney.
I would have loved if there was some way to discourage him from smoking with me in the car.
A few Canadian provinces have already passed this type of law. Generally I don’t support laws which dictate what we can do in our own homes or vehicles but I support this one.
It is extremely selfish for smokers to expose children to second-hand smoke. When they light up they are saying “Its more important to satisfy my addiction RIGHT NOW than wait until everyone is out of the car.”
I sincerely hope they pass this law in NY and that other American states follow their example.
http://tinyurl.com/6yqmhc
Its so obvious these smoking laws keep pushing further and further. It started with no smoking on planes. Ok, understandable with the whole recycled air thing. Then restaurants and bars. Kinda pushing it now when they had different sections in place. Then it leaked into the workplace. Certain long haul trucking companies were contemplating banning smoking in trucks. Guys that literally spend days at a time in the cab cant smoke because the guy who uses the truck the following week don’t like the SMELL of smoke. Thats not even a health concern any longer and is beyond insane. Now its to the point where there’s even restrictions when your outside. No smoking on the beach, so many feet from this building, no smoking on this property, no smoking in your own car with a kid, etc.
There’s little difference between smoking in a car with your kid and feeding them garbage processed foods/fast food on a daily basis. Police better start rolling these fat asses onto flat bed trucks and taking em to fat camp. Banning soda in schools wont cut it.
And while we’re saving the children from everything, why not put seat belts in school buses? Isn’t that pretty vital considering its the law for everyone else to buckle up? Not the kids though eh? Too much money to implement I guess? Poor kids.
Yes. This is to protect kids. I don’t give a flip about your right to puff up. Do it when the lungs you are messing with are your own.
I think it’s stupid that everyone is shoving their opinions on EVERYTHING down everyone else’s throat.
Stay out of my life and worry about your own.
I could get behind this.
I’m kind of neutral on nanny-state rules for adults, but it infuriates me to see mothers and fathers breathing smoke into their childrens’ faces. Christ, if you care so little about your children why did you have them in the first place?
It’s not a matter that it’s your “right” as an adult to do whatever you want to your own lungs. You’re bothering other people, plain and simple. In the case of kids, they don’t have the choice of going somewhere else.
I say fine smokers for everything. Make cigs $100 a pack. There’s no good reason for them to exist.
/puritan rant
Seriously tho, I’ve yet to hear one single, defensible argument about why smoking is allowed to exist at all.
Hurts you, hurts everyone you’re near, the smell is honestly unbearable (not to mention allergic issues), and I feel terrible for the non-smoking SOs of smokers.
And in a time when everyone’s budget is missing more than a few bucks, wasting money on these just doesn’t make sense at all.
I would agree with this…
but I’d rather see people getting fined for smoking while carrying a child in there arms. Does anyone else this is as sick as I do, I hate seeing a mother carrying there toddler or baby in one arm, while smoking with the other, it’s disgusting and downright bad parenting.
Man have I been waiting a long time for this to come up. How about anyone who smokes not only in a car, but the same house, with a minor be charged with child abuse? If there were a way to ban smokers from having kids, I’d do it.
Anyone who hurts children should be put down, end of story.
As much as I hate the despicable things that people do for the benefit of “the children”, this sounds like a good idea. However, it will be about as much of a success as the prohibition on cell phone use and texting while driving. Like driving a couple mph over the speed limit. Yes, it’s illegal but is a cop going to go through all the trouble for a minor infraction when surely someone much worse will come along any minute?
Already law here in Manitoba.