The British Medical Association has called for a ban on people smoking in cars. Not other peoples’ cars – their own cars.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I think it’s an outrageous idea. What business do doctors have telling us what to do in our own spaces? But if they really are intent on stopping people doing things for health reasons, why stop there? Why stop at banning people doing things in cars? Let’s just ban cars. They are, after all, extremely dangerous. They kill people, either directly, by running them over, or indirectly, by producing harmful pollutants.
And while we’re about it, let’s stop people from drinking. Alcohol is evil and probably causes more health and social problems than just about anything else put together. But why not be really imaginative, and stop people having sex? Having sex in cars is certainly very dangerous, especially if you are trying to negotiate the Hanger Lane Gyratory at the same time, but if nobody’s driving any more, because you’ve banned them from doing so, then ban sex altogether. Not only does sex spread an awful lot of very nasty diseases, it also causes children, of which there are far too many already.
While we are in the mood for prohibition, let’s ban The Spectator, the organ that published this very good article on the BMA’s proposal (thanks to Timandra Harkness for the link). Were I in the mood for forcing other people to do what I think is best for them, whether they want it or not, I’d pass a law requiring that copies of the Spectator are forcibly shoved up the bums of every do-gooding, holier-than-thou, humourless, self-righteous Guardian reader.
I note that the Grauniad has not published a comment on the BMA’s antics – wimping out with this poll, which shows, when I last looked, that more than 29 per cent of respondents actually agreed with the BMA’s proscriptive suggestion.
Only 29%, Guardian? Shurely you can do better than that.
But perhaps not. The Guardian does seem very confused, which is not surprising given that its ethos is to promote the freedom to believe in anything you like provided it’s their view. Take, for example, this hysterical rant against the very sensible proposals of a parliamentarian that abstinence from sex might be something compulsorily taught to young girls as a normal part of sex education (which, having two daughters myself who’ve had sex education, I thought they were advised as a matter of course.) But this is the Grauniad we are talking about – I thought the do-gooders were going to ban sex, not promote it, despite its evident dangers? Is the Guardian‘s line that girls should be free to have under-age sex in private but abstain from having a cigarette afterwards? Or is it just people smoking in their own cars?
Hmm – I thought his piece by Michael White was quite thoughtful and goes out of it’s way *not* to tell people what to do. But that’s just me.
Odd also that you should lambast Guardian readers in this way since the majority of them (>70%) appear to agree with you. Perhaps they’re a more mixed bunch that you give them credit for?
And please could you remove your copy of the spectator from my arse – it’s starting to sting.
Glad to see from Henry’s reply to Stephen Curry up above that that irritating little itch isn’t an unfortunately inserted copy of the Spectacularly Rightwing. As one of the unabashed Guardian readers hereabouts I was beginning to get a little nervous.
Anyway, the article Stephen linked to (first comment) by Michael White seemed eminently sensible. And in the Guardian too. Like him, and others here, I would only remotely be tempted to ban smoking in cars with the kids. Similar to a couple of other commenters, I had to put up with it as a child (cigarette-smoking mother), to which I attribute my never having smoked.
I see Nico has already spotted that the ‘parliamentarian’ whose ‘abstinence’ sex ed campaign Henry refers to in passing is Nadine Dorries, definitely not someone I would associate with the label ‘very sensible’. Actually Dorries is something of a poster child for the tendency of wanting to impose her (US-style fundamentalist Christian conservative) social and moral agenda on everyone else. Sort of the political mirror image of the version of the Guardian in Henry’s demonology, actually.
Readers of the Grauniad might be a ‘mixed bunch’, but the call for a smoking ban in cars is plainly so unreasonable that nobody should support it, not even Guardian readers. I read a comment elsewhere that the 29% of Guardian readers who did support it should be deported to North Korea. And Michael White didn’t come out against the ban – he only said that he’d hesitate before supporting it. Feet firmly planted in mid-air, that one.
And I have not actually implanted a copy of the Spectator up your rectum, Stephen. I only said that were I in the mood to pass laws telling people to do what I thought was best for them, whether they liked it or not, that was a proposal I might consider. But I am not that kind of person. I’d rather you didn’t read the Spectator, actually, and save it for people who believe in peoples’ freedom to do pretty much what they want with the minimum of state interference.
Admittedly, I did not read the BMA’s call for a ban on smoking in cars. On the one hand, I do agree that people should be allowed to what they want in their private spaces–so long as they are not harming others. But there are 2 points that I’d like to make:
1) Why not ban smoking altogether? I mean, define cigarettes as illegal drugs that cause irreparable damage, the same way other illegal drugs do? Wouldn’t be too popular a move for the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in the US to propose, but given that one can’t buy penicillin without a prescription, or various painkillers, it would make sense. The FDA regulates things that are a lot less dangerous than smoking.
2) My only real objection to smoking in private cars is in the case where children might be subjected to injurious second-hand smoke with no choice (not necessarily any understanding, either) and nowhere to escape. I can vouch for the fact that I suffered greatly as a result of such parental behavior. Not sure if a law would do the trick, though.
Your point no 2 has merit, but there is still the argument that one should beware of banning people from doing things in their own spaces. Education is better than proscription in my view. You could ban smoking, but history shows that prohibition doesn’t work (qv. alcohol) – my view is that all drugs should be legalised, but that’s my view, and a topic for another discussion.
I agree with you that prohibition doesn’t work, and worse (based on experiences in the middle-east) making laws that can’t be enforced simply encourages citizens to break the law. Education is the key. Although I do feel for any child forced to inhale second-hand smoke. It’s an awful feeling.
I agree – I feel for children forced to inhale secondhand smoke in cars, usually driven by some uncouth oaf or the kind of slapper of a mother whose only interaction with her children is to yell at them to shut up. But all such things will pass.
We no longer hang people for murder, nor do we send children up chimneys or down mines. Smoking is not illegal – but as a result of education it’s much less prevalent than it once was. The ban in the UK on smoking in public places was generally welcomed – I certainly enjoy going to pubs more than I did, when as soon as I got home I had to decontaminate myself.
so… to follow on from my other comment, we don’t have to ban smoking in cars. We simply prosecute parents, who inflict 2nd hand smoke on their children, for child abuse.
As the Danish physicist Holger Bech Nielsen once pointed out in a public lecture, when we count the people who die in cars, we should always remember to also count the number of people who are made in cars . . .
But only if the cars were stationary, I hope.
There’s a joke in somewhere there about whether the earth, or the car, moved. But I won’t say anything as it might be smutty.
I’m not sure I understand why this has anything to do with the Guardian, and how their decision not to cover extensively what will be by tomorrow a forgotten anecdote is such a cop out.
Anyway, I find it interesting that the BMA justifies this ban on the effects of secondary smoking, when I thought that the main concern would be a driver operating a heavy piece of machinery, capable of fairly high speeds, while waving about an incandescent piece of material. I know because I used to drive and smoke, and had a few close calls. Like driving while handling a mobile, driving while smoking seems like a dangerous thing to do. The problem is that this rule would be pretty much impossible to apply, already only a vanishingly small proportion of texting drivers get caught, when mobile phone ownership is at or above 100% among drivers. Thinking up laws that are inapplicable have the effect that people then ignore other, more important laws, as Steve noted.
The BMA has form in calling for stupid bans, as a keen cyclist commuter I remember that they proposed the wear of helmets be made compulsory for cyclists, “to protect children’s brains” or some other preposterous rambling.
The point, which the previous UK administration so spectacularly missed, is that such things are already banned.
It’s called ‘driving without due care and attention’. Go look it up.
(And yeah. The BMA has stupid form. Move along, nothing to see)
I agree with Stephen C’s point 2. As I child I used to spend hours and hours in the family car while my Dad chain-smoked cigars – for about 15 years of my life. We weren’t allowed to open the windows in the winter. It was probably the most miserable thing that used to happen in my life, and I despised feeling trapped and unable to breathe fresh air. I’ve got nothing against people smoking in their own cars provided they’re not making their kids uncomfortable – or increasing their risk of cancer. So while I’d oppose a general ban as too intrusive, I think I would support the inflicting of second-hand smoke in very small, unventilated private spaces when the victims can’t escape. It sure would be difficult to enforce, though.
And I agree with Stephen C.’s point that your caricature of Guardian readers might be a bit simplistic. I read several different broadsheets, including the Guardian, but also the Times and the Telegraph. In all of these I find good journalism and bad journalism, and a spread of opinion that can’t be so neatly pidgeonholed.
It does not follow that smoking in cars should be banned because you and Dr S. C. of Omaha had to suffer such horrors as children. What works – and has been shown to work in the case of smoking – is education. Prohibition is always counterproductive.
I shall caricature the Grauniad at every opportunity, and will continue to do so. Ever since a precociously Leftie cousin once pompously said, as a child, that he followed ‘intellectual’ politics, I have become sensitised to its oleaginously nauseating hypocrisy, and that particular brand of hypocritical self-regarding smugness that Grauniad readership generates.
PS I actually agree with you about legalisation of (at least some) drugs, when you can get hashish at pretty much very single secondary school in the country, you’re fighting a losing battle. Interestingly, the most anti-marijuana people I have met (non-representative sample of course) were Dutch.
I also agree with you that abstinence is definitely an option that should be taught alongside the rest of sex ed (my offspring is only 3, so we haven’t had to tackle that one yet). I am surprised it wouldn’t be, after all it is the safest option. At the same time I understand it is difficult not to get histerical when you’re up against Nadine Dorries. And if I remember well she was suggesting that abstinence is made mandatory part of sex ed for girls only. If you want to push the buttons of a Graun columnist, that will do nicely.
Well, yes. You can scream about abstinence all you like at boys, but it is the girls who have most to lose. That’s anisogamy, man. Basic, unarguable biology. No amount of feminism will change that, and it does nobody any good – and girls in particular – to pretend otherwise.
I understand you would approach things differently for teaching boys vs girls, but to make it mandatory only for girls seemed daft. I was taught at school about many things I shouldn’t do, and I still did many of them, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have been taught those things in the first place. Maybe the emphasis for boys should be that a girl will (most likely) say ‘no’, and that they should respect that. But then I don’t know much about modern sex ed, I’ll update you in ~7-8 years. Disclaimer: I am the carrier of XY chromosomes.
A ban against smoking in cars is unreasonable for adults, unless you ban smoking altogether.
However, as Steve (Caplan) mentions, where children are involved it makes sense. But a ban? You folks are behind the times. We here in Ontario have had an honest-to-goodness LAW against smoking in cars where there are children present, since January of 2009.
http://www.mhp.gov.on.ca/en/smoke-free/simv/default.asp
The $125 fine seems a bit feeble though, and of course this particular aspect of that law is nigh impossible to enforce, unless the driver’s been stopped for something else.