June 27, 2011 3.35 pm This story is over 154 months old

Local vote says don’t smoke in cars with kids

Car smoking: A survey found that 398 out of 401 people said smoking shouldn’t be allowed in cars that carry children.

Almost every person asked at the Lincolnshire Show if people should be allowed to smoke in cars with children answered “no”.

Of 401 people balloted, 398 said no. The vote was held by Smoke Free Lincs Alliance (SFLA), on its stall.

While the result is overwhelming, there’s an obvious bias in that the people who are most likely to be attracted to the stall will be sympathetic or open to SFLA’s aims.

Parliament is currently considering legislation that would ban people from smoking in cars carrying children.

Ros Watson, Smoke Free Lincs Alliance Co-ordinator, said: “We had some very interesting chats with people at the Lincolnshire Show and the results of the poll were very conclusive.

“Smoking just one cigarette in a car, even with the window open, creates a greater concentration of secondhand smoke than a whole evening’s smoking in a pub.

“This new research clearly illustrates that child passengers are exposed to dangerous levels of poisonous particles from smoke.

“Opening the car window still does not reduce the levels of secondhand smoke in a car to a safe level. The smoke that remains in the vehicle, or blows back in, also lingers for hours, affecting the lungs of anyone who breathes it in.”

Pat Nurse, a member of the grassroots smokers’ rights organisation Freedom 2 Choose, said: “Smoking in cars is not about health, it’s about further de-normalisation, de-humanisation and stigmatisation of people who choose to smoke.

“Despite studies being twisted and manipulated by the vastly wealthy pharmaceutical companies and government taxpayer-funded anti-smoking industry, there’s no harm caused to anyone by smokers smoking in cars.

“However, smoker parents are quite capable of erring on the side of consideration when their children are about and will set their own policies for the good of their own families without the need for legislation.

“To bring in a law such as that is an insult to British smoker parents.”

Source: Lincolnshire County Council | Photo: Smoke Free Lincs Alliance