People Who Smoke in the Car with Children in Them

Government sets laws to protect people from themselves. Examples: seatbelt and helmet laws. Bans on cannabis, trans-fat, and Sunday liquor shopping.

So to the people complaining about outlawing smoking in the car with children, how does this make this any more “nanny state” than requiring seat-belts and helmets? It actually makes it less because seat-belt laws are made solely to protect yourself - which fits the definition of “nanny state”; outlawing smoking in cars with children in them is not designed in order to protect the smoker, but the children!

Saying that outlawing smoking in vehicles with children in them is “nanny state” and therefore we shouldn’t do it is foolish for two reasons:

  1. It’s not a nanny state law. It’s designed to protect the children, not the smoker him/herself.

  2. Even if it was a nanny state law, so what? We have laws that fit the definition of nanny state much better like requiring seat-belt and helmet usage.

This is going to sound horribly stupid, but I had no idea how much I stank from living in my parents house until I went away to college. It was a reality of life, I had no concept. I never stayed away more than one night at a time away from my parents. Once I got into college and moved out I went the opposite extreme and changed clothes in the garage so the stench wouldn’t stick to me as badly. I’m sure it stunted my social growth always being stinky and greasy from the constant smoke.

My dad only started smoking outside once my Mom was on oxygen 24/7. Up until then, my Mom took her oxygen off to allow him to smoke. She defended the practice, said she wouldn’t kick him out of his own home.

My parents believed, particularly my dad, that children adapted to their parents lifestyle, not vice versa. He grew up in the time of children being seen and not heard and children speaking only when spoken to. With that attitude, no wonder they didn’t bend over backwards for their kids. I don’t really blame them for it, they had a philosophy and stuck to it and for the most part it worked out OK. Three very independent, capable children.

    This.

What about the children’s choice?

Do you have a response to this, Tollhouse? And adding on to what I said, nanny state laws sometimes are needed. So even if you consider it to be “nanny state” (which it isn’t), so what?

Yes, I did have an opinion, that you already read in post above

Amen to that! I have no respect for anyone who doesn’t put their kids first.
God bless you always!!!
Holly

I have started a formal debate on this subject here.

^^^ Why is another chat needed? I appreciate April R for getting this one going and saying what needed to be said about the subject. :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:
God bless you and her always!!!
Holly
P.S. April, if you have anything else to say about it, don’t hold back! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Because that is discussing a more specific issue (whether or not citations should be issued for smoking in vehicles with children in them) ather than ranting about it the subject as a whole (like this thread).

Damn, my spelling and grammar sucked in my last post. Sorry for the inconvenience.

^^^ I don’t blame April R for putting a chat about this in this area of the forum. If anyone deserves to be thrown into a barbecue pit, it is those who don’t stop to consider the health of those who are going to be around them.
God bless you and her always!!!
Holly
P.S. What is so sad is that throwing a cigarette lover into a barbecue pit would only be doing them a favor because what they love would then be all around them: smoke. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I wasn’t blaming her. I like this pitting. That is why I am actively posting in it.

or flick the butt out of the car sometimes causing terrible and dangerous spreading fires during dry hot summers or if someone gets REALLY LUCKY it will get blown back into the back seat and burn whoever is sitting or get blown into another car and set something in it on fire.

every year we have roadside fires, and think of those godawful fires in CA that destroy millions of dollars worth of property.

my cousin at 4 months old wound with a cigerette burn less than inch from her eye because of a blown back butt. twice I’ve seen news stories of cars having to be put out on the interstate because of a smouldering cigerette butt.

one of the worst wrecks I was ever in was because some ass dropped his cigerette and was looking down groping himself trying to keep from setting his balls on fire while doing 80 on a busy highways. six car pileup, 3 people hospitalized, all the vehicles totaled and traffic backed up for 4 hours because he couldn’t be arsed to wait he got home rather than drive distracted. (and yes I get just as shitty about people who eat, do their makeup or fuck about with their phone.)

I’ve encountered dope addicts who as least had enough control to stop their damn car somewhere before sucking down their poison.

What an idiotic and pointless statement.

That’s the same as me saying: My dad drove with me in his car, he never had a car accident – so what is all this panic about car accidents. I never got killed in a car accident; he never got killed in an accident.

Yes, you are 50 years old – act like it, grow a brain.

Just because, you were lucky enough for not getting cancer (yet), does not mean that smoking is healthy.

Never mind the distraction a cigarette can be when driving and causing accidents or the risk of burning the car out.

My folks smoked (and both had long, miserable deaths from it too), and caused a mattress fire from my mother’s cigarette butt blowing back into the backseat of the car, which had a mattress laid out on it for my sister and I to sleep on. My father pulled off the highway, we bailed out, and my father pulled the smouldering mattress out of the car. On other occasions, blown back cigarette butts marred the back seat upholstery.

Thank you for some rational, factual responses to this thread. My OP was overtly dramatic and I apologize for my admittedly over the top reaction by calling it abuse, and I appreciate some back up from actual experiences and studies. Smoking in the car with children should be outlawed, point blank.

I get the oh think o the children thing because I’ve had that thrown in my face for stupid shit like using bad language or not giving a damn that a pair of lesbian friends chastely kissed each other on the lips in public, but when it comes to what amounts to spraying toxic chemicals into the air I and children are breathing, fuck it, think of EVERYONE around you, including the children because yes, they have no way to escape it.

you got lucky. I had bronchitis and pnemonia eery year until I moved out of my parents home and had one of my lungs collapse twice before I was 15. I nearly got held back in school three different years despite excellent grades, but because I had spent to many days sick or in the hospital. Granted, I have severe allergies and this aggrevated the problem, but whose to say i would have had allegies at all (no one else in the family does) if I hadn’t been exposed to so much smoke?

I had a teacher accuse me of smoking because of the way I smelled and demand to search my things and literally flipped out…desks out third story windows and a locker ripped off it’s hinges. To accuse me of doing something I daily begged my parents to stop doing and which had nearly killed me…more than I could take. I slept outdoors in a tent in the summer when I got old enough that my parents could force me to stay indoors.

and I hate that this makes my parents sound like heartless bastards, they tried to quit over and over and over, but cigerettes are THE most addictive substance on earth, and even if you havent smoked in four years walking past someone with a heavy smoke smell on them or being in the presence of second hand smoke can literally re addict you as if you lit up.

Your lungs collapsed twice before the age of 15, plus your teacher threw your desk out of a upper floor window , plus you had to sleep in a tent? Hmmm, well I know cigarette smoke isnt healthy, but this seems pretty darn extreme, to say the least…I forgot, and also a locker door RIPPED off its very hinges…holy smokescreen