Smoking and driving

Jeez when they gonna give smokers a break ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7017543.stm

[quote="WormThatTurned"]Jeez when they gonna give smokers a break ?

Quote :

Smoking drivers would be charged if it is thought they were driving without due care and attention

Fail to see the problem. If I was rooting for my CD with one hand and driving with the other and the Police caught me I could be fined. Same goes for if you are driving one or no handed while lighting a cigarette. For me it is no different from answering a mobile phone. You should pull over and light up or not bother.

same here, this isnt really new

perhaps it was a no news day...

You can easily light up a cigarette whilst driving safely. Smokers and drivers seemed to be hitten with a large stick at every opportunity thesedays. They'll be a fine for looking in your mirrors next.

WormThatTurned wrote:

You can easily light up a cigarette whilst driving safely. Smokers and drivers seemed to be hitten with a large stick at every opportunity thesedays. They'll be a fine for looking in your mirrors next.

In your opinion you can. In mine anything that distracts you from the road is a risk.

Lets ban passengers then and car radios !!

the offence is driving without due care and attention

If someone is not paying attention because they are distracted by kids, passengers, or are trying to tune the radio, use their sat nav etc, then it is just the same. Why are the smokers whingeing (again!)

I tend to put my radio on before I pull off however..!!

I dont smoke !!

Ididnt mean you...I mean the person behind the idea to write the article with such a slant...!

I had a friend who threw her fag end out of the window (littering - should have been fined for that ;-)) and didn't notice that it had blown back in, landed on the back seat where it smouldered quietly until the seat caught fire.

And I heard (maybe an urban myth) of a guy who dropped his cigarette on his lab when he was driving - you can imagine the rest of that story.

Smoking in a car is dangerous.

But probably much less so than driving in a car with a bunch of out of control children. I have sat behind a car at a traffic light where a mother missed three sets of green lights whilst she shouted at her kids, oblivious to the row of cars behind hooting to get her attention.

And why do parents still allow their kids to go in a car without a seatbelt on?

About 3 years ago I was driving around Kettering, thank god in a quiet street, and threw my fag out and it somehow came back in the car and went down the back of me seat burning my back. Still somehow never stopped me from smoking in my car. However maybe banning it would be a good idea but I really dont see how you can police it, just like many over things.

I agree about kids in the car though. Obviously with a young baby who just tends to sleep when in the car its very easy for me to pass judgement at the moment, but if Caleb ever plays up in the car I just ignore him and maybe stop somewhere safe to sort him out. If you are fussing with your kids while on the road yo uare putting both your lives at danger, just not worth the risk.

Oh and whenever I have ever had young kids in my car, I always, without fail, make sure they have their belts on, and if they take them off or start messing about I will stop the car and sort the problem out. Once again it is just too dangerous.

Maybe someone should invent child proof seatbelts so that they can't take them off?

Or put them in the boot.

The police don't catch people doing naughty things on the road anymore - blame the speed cameras for that. There aren't any coppers around to give you a talking to for driving with a Jack Russel on your lap or on the parcel shelf (both of which I've seen on the M6).

drewboy wrote:

Maybe someone should invent child proof seatbelts so that they can't take them off?

I agree, I bet the child abuse brigade would be out in force about imprisonment then though! No doubt some evil parents would happily leave kids locked in car while they went shopping etc. Not me of course

But parents used to.

My mum regularly left my sister and me in the car when we were kids but there was no evil in it. It's just what people did.

Me too. Infact sometimes I used to ask to stay in the car so I could listen to the radio. I got a right look from a man the other day when I was filling my car up at the petrol station. He saw that Caleb was in the car and I was in the shop paying (where I could see my car at all times) and he was shaking his head and tuting to his wife.

What does he expect you to do, wake baby, take him into shop etc...! then he would be tutting at you for being an extra five minutes at the pump..!