Car Smoking Banned From Midnight

[joggerjayne]

So the Smoke Free (Private Vehicles) Regulations 2015 come into force at midnight.

Quirks ... (just to make the Police's job REALLY hard!)

The ban applies to motorhomes, obviously ... as long as they are moving. Not if they are stationary.

The ban does not apply to convertibles with the top open. The top on a Fiat 500 Convertible is just a strip down the middle of the roof. But the ban does not apply. Several other cars have an identical opening strip, but call it a full sun roof. The ban does apply.

The ban does not apply to vape sticks. If you put something in your mouth and puff out a cloud of smoke, the Police have a passing instant to spot the difference and decide to stop you.

If a 17 year old and an 18 year old are in a car together, the 17 year old can smoke, but the 18 year old cannot.

Is it an offence to merely "hold" a cigarette? I'm not going to smoke it until I get out of the car. I've just lit the end.

If it is an offence to be holding a lit cigarette, a 17 year old driver can smoke, but if he passes the cigarette to an 18 year old passenger just to hold while he reverses the car, the passenger becomes guilty of an offence.

Or is the passenger okay because it's not his cigarette he's holding? Do the Police also have to work out who is the owner of the cigarette?

The Police Federation have said ...

The law is impracticable and unenforceable. Our officers should not be expected to work as health workers. We are not going to enforce the new law.

Taxpayers' money well spent passing this legislation?

[ToraToraTora]

any form of sanction against these selfish disgusting oafs is welcome in my book. Trying to dig up every possible obscure enforcement situation just shows desperation. We all know it's to stop smokers gassing their own children. Sad that legislation is necessary. Plod will do what they do now in most cases apply a bit of increasingly rare common sense. 2 adults puffing away with kid in back your nicked, simples.

[Jackdaw33]

TTT, although you are at the opposite end of the political spectrum to Mikey, yet when it comes to spouting off about your favourite hobby horses it is hard to put a cigarette paper between you as regards intolerance.

In controversial matters the religious will often pose the question, "What would Jesus do?"

In your case, ask yourself, "What would Maggie do?"

The answer may surprise you.

[THECORBYLOON]

The law applies to cars with more than one person in them when there is at least one person under age eighteen. This means a seventeen-year old CANNOT smoke if he is not alone.

[ToraToraTora]

so you think selfish parents should be allowed to gas their own children then, right oh!

[ToraToraTora]

smokers just love to split hairs about the finer points of enforcement, anything rather than just accept their selfish disgusting habit is abhorrent to most people.

[ToraToraTora]

DB, I have said many times when AOG spouts his BS about car fumes being just as dangerous. I don't give a rats arris about the toxicity, it's the disgusting smell. If I sat in your car farting you'd object right? My fumes may be less harm than the exhaust fumes but you'd be right to object to my farting would you not?

[mikey4444]

Jack...I am not aware if you are a smoker or not, but let me ask you a simple and direct question ::::

Do you think people should be allowed to smoke in a confined space, where children is present ?

Yes or no.

[ToraToraTora]

JD is a smoker, guaranteed, you cannot hide the selfish disdain of the clean if you're smoker.

[beso]

The 17 year old can smoke? In Australia it is illegal for anyone under 18 to smoke at all.

It aught to be illegal to smoke while driving. It seems ridiculous that one cannot drive while holding a phone but can hold and light a cigarette while driving.

[Prudie]

Smoking is not abhorrent to most people,only those with extreme views. Disliked by a fair proportion maybe, abhorrent no.

I'd bet not a single AB smoker or any other decent human being would say it's OK to smoke in a car or confined space with children.

[beso]

//I'd bet not a single AB smoker or any other decent human being would say it's OK to smoke in a car or confined space with children.//

There are very many smokers who are not decent human beings.

[Jackdaw33]

@Mikey

To the first question the answer is yes. To the second, the answer is no, I would not dream of it.However, this should not require legislation, merely common sense. If you were to walk into a telephone kiosk, not that many do these days, and smoke in the presence of a child, you would not be breaking the law.

[joggerjayne]

// The law applies to cars with more than one person in them when there is at least one person under age eighteen. This means a seventeen-year old CANNOT smoke if he is not alone //

I think the "exception" is that ...

It is not an offence for a 17 year old to smoke while driving without anyone else in the car aged under 18.

So a 17 year old CAN smoke with other people in the car, as long as they are all 18 or more.

But the exception doesn't apply the other way round.

So, if the ages of four people in a car are 46, 48, 49, and 17 ... the people in their 40s are NOT allowed to smoke, but the 17 year old IS allowed to smoke.

[mikey4444]

Prudie...I don't want to get into a pedantic debate about the everyday use and definition of common English words, but I find smoking abhorrent.

But your second sentence is undoubtedly true.....of course no one, even the militant smoking wing of AB, would say its a good idea to smoke in a car or a confined space with children ! Only an idiot would say that !

So why is there so much opposition to this new law ? Its not going to be easy to uphold, but neither are the seat-belt laws, or the speeding laws, or the drink-driving laws, but that isn't a good reason not to proceed with the legislation is it ?

Smoking in my lifetime, actually less, has gone from a situation where Doctors advertised cigarettes, to a situation where it is just not acceptable any more.

When the "smoking in licensed premises" laws were passed here in Wales, just a few years ago, lots of of people said that the laws would never work, but they have ! There is a tidy knot of people standing outside Pubs, in all weathers, puffing away, when they would previously have been inside doing the same.

So lets give this new law time to bed in and work....we might all be pleasantly surprised !

[ToraToraTora]

JJ stop analysing the extremities, you must know what is intended.

[Jackdaw33]

I await with keen interest the first prosecution.

[mikey4444]

Me too Jack !

[joggerjayne]

I do know what is intended, TTT

But the Police do not enforce "what is intended"

They enforce ... the statute as drafted.

And Defence lawyers, who will go to town arguing about the nitty gritty facts of cases, do not give two hoots about "what is intended".

All they care about is ... can they expose any flaws.

The intention behind the statute is good, and laudable.

The legislation itself is messy, rushed, unclear and, as the Police Federation say, a nightmare for the Police.

It's no good hiding from the flaws and the grey areas. Those are the very areas on which defendants and their lawyers will be concentrating. The areas that will receive ALL the attention.