Smoking illegal in your car with under-18-year-old "Children" inside?!!

OP
J

JimM

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
309
Reaction score
0
Location
Berks, UK
Your Mercedes
W210 E320 CDi Avantgarde Estate 2002
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #41
Thats two of you that cant read what i wrote ?
I said " you cant eat or drink whilst driving anymore"
I didnt say a word about any law.
People get prosecuted for it, therefore by reasonable deduction you are not allowed to.
Most smokers have respect for others and therefore dont complain when getting shafted yet again, and guess the law is necessary for the few that have no respect for others .

Yes you said "Can't". Why, because we're physically impaired?

No, you said it in a way that had so much conviction, and can only be interpreted as "by law".

Two of us is a minority.

Join us then we can be 3! ;)

As I said several times, I have no problem with the law banning smoking with children in the car.

My points are:
- what age is a child, make your minds up to one age for all laws implying adulthood and apply it in all circumstances. Since 16 is the legal age allowing so many activities that parents would not normally allow, let 16 be the decisive age of adulthood - or withdraw all such laws to 18.
- OK for this law if you stop there. But I don't trust you to stop there, because you are already making noises about banning me from smoking in my car completely.

Then if I allow you to do that, you will seek to stop me smoking in any open space, and then in my own home too.

That, I will not allow.

Starting with my own car.
 
Last edited:

grober

Senior Member
Joined
May 15, 2002
Messages
2,947
Reaction score
27
Location
Scotland
Your Mercedes
W204 C200cdi estate
I think lots of people think that health legislation is "back of the envelope" stuff whereas in reality it's the result of lengthy consultation with medical professionals who are specialists in the field. Much of the legislation concerning what young people "can and cannot do" relates to their mental capacity and their degree of maturity. While there are parallels with their physical development the two may not be entirely in sinc. I would suggest the age of 18 chosen for the legislation is more to do with the average rate of maturity of the human lung. One can easily understand the still maturing heart lung system is more likely to suffer damage from passive smoking than one that has developed completely in the adult. This might be particularly relevant in the area of aveolar micro vasculature for example.
http://www.ana.unibe.ch/users/schittny/public_html/Reprints/Schittny2008Fishman.pdf
 
Last edited:

Goliath

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
321
Reaction score
3
Location
Bristol
Your Mercedes
'03 SL55 AMG
Jim,

I don't want to have a massive argument as in all honesty I am struggling to see what you are arguing for, when reading your posts I can't always make out what side you are on.

There's a couple of points I want to ask for clarity though...

I mentioned that smoking in your car when you have children in the car is harming someone (the children) but you say I am wrong, can you please explain what you mean?

With regard the legal age, if ages 16 and 18 cover all younger ages then why mention 16 as surely 18 covers that?

I agree that the pretty young girl or the boy on the tube would have lead you to assault charges if you had intervened, however their own parents could have intervened and had no issues.

From what I am reading on your posts you seem to have a VERY pessimistic and sad (as in upsetting) view on life with little value to your own or other peoples lives (as a whole).

If you had been alive in the 1800's I imagine you would have been the sort of person to class all advances in medicine as a bad thing for mankind as it would have increased life expectancy etc., I do hope I am wrong.

For reference, here is a graph showing average life expectancy in the past 150 years. It has more then doubled in that time without the world going into a meltdown full of old forgotten grannies, so what is the problem if it doubles again in the next 150 years? With the advances in medicine people will be healthier for longer (otherwise they will die at the age we do now) so the retirement age will increase and there won't be the 20, 30, 40 years of sitting in an old peoples home without visitors and slowly rotting away that you predict.
figure2_tcm77-291961.png
 
OP
J

JimM

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
309
Reaction score
0
Location
Berks, UK
Your Mercedes
W210 E320 CDi Avantgarde Estate 2002
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #44
Hi Goliath.

Well any argument is fine, as long as we know what it is about.

You missed my meanings I think , because I did write reams.

Here goes to explain...

I mentioned that I don't and would not smoke when there are children in my car. So the question of breaking this law would not arise for me. Nor for most smokers.

When you say this: "When it stops harming children around you. 'Just because...' some of us think that harming children is a serious problem.", you have missed what I said and assumed there will be children in my car. No.

You also missed what I said about the likelihood of a subsequent law which will prevent me from smoking when alone, and you only repeated that there is no current law.

It is quite likely because there are already loud noises being made to that effect.

If that is allowed to happen by people who think I and all other smokers have no rights to smoke on this earth, then it will also not be much longer after that when yet another law is passed that prevents us smoking in open spaces, and very likely another forbidding it in our own homes.

I have explained how we are made to feel and again there seems to be little understanding and no tolerance from "non-smokers". Yet you - they - do not appreciate that smokers gave in easily when smokingin restaurants was banned, then in offices - until they were pushed out of the buildings altogether.

You ask why I mention 16 or 18 for the law we are discussing, and not 15 or other ages? Odd. Did you miss again that point, that 16 is either not an adult, or 16 is the adult? This is inconsistent. There is absolutely no reason to consider a 16 year old as a child when they can do exactly as they please including disobey their parents, leave home, get married, have intercourse... so they can therefore judge for themselves whether or not to stay in the car or consent when the driver or another passenger wants to smoke.

So why 18 for this particular law?

As for my pessimism, I think you haven't experienced life in full, you've not visited old people and seen how their families really don't have time for them, how many are childless. Or homes to see how many are slumped in chairs, exactly as I have already described.

So why not let more of us die earlier, but happily able to carry on smoking, when we are not close to others, as in open areas, our cars, our homes? Some of us may die of that. Or from being fat from over eating? Or from diesel fumes? There is certainly not much future happiness for many when they can no longer look after themselves. Before you deny that, go visit any nursing home near to you and make your own arrangements for your own old age.

And no, I am not the kind who stops beneficial progress. But I also do not condone men becoming god, experimental genetic engineering, production of human babies from genetic material and so on. There is no benefit to today's nor tomorrow's humanity from that, only satisfaction of the wishes of the mad scientist and ultimately - the profits and greed of the businessman who knows how to manipulate you.

What does your suggestion of the naked man have to do with our case? It's not at all the same.

He seems happier to be inside jail, he realised he has no future or support on the outside. Inside he will be fed and watered and washed and treated when he is unwell. He is more clever than you think, he knows what life on the outside is all about for him, and he knows he has no chance of a reasonable quality of life except inside.

In our case, only mass demonstrations and physical actions will prevent our rights from being completely extinguished... then in a while, yours.

By the way your graph seems to show only females - the men will continue to die earlier as we do and have done for generations.

So what am I asking?

Firstly: To define the age of "children" for all laws and apply them so that there is clarity and the transfer of responsibility for their own actions and safety to them on reaching adulthood. Let it be either 18 or 16, but if 18 then stop the in my and most parents' view ridiculous "rights" to marry, sexual intercourse, etc until that age is reached. But it's too late to move it up to 18, so it should be 16. Parents were not consulted. We were ignored. My parents were ignored when the motor cycle driving age was reduced to 16, my father was very uinhappy. I was delighted. But in those first 2 years I was nearly killed several times.

And secondly: To stop there. Enough is enough. If any law is passed to prevent me from smoking in my car at any time, where are my rights? The "tolerance" of the public is a lie.

Traditional values of tolerance and protection of the rights of others are a pretence, dead and buried, a thing of the past. There is little tolerance for the rights of others, never mind the lip service.

So as I have said, unless the great gullible and nervous British public understands that it is important to support and defend minority rights in many aspects, for instance in preventing any law that tries to completely ostracise smokers, all of you will eventually be affected by other restrictive laws which are quietly and swiftly put in place by those who pull you by the nose, and sooner or later you too will be in my current place for other reasons. And nobody will be there for your rights either.

What will you do then?

Stopping smokers from smoking in public buildings has been done, and now in some open areas too, which is absurd and driven by neurosis and fear and doubt. And maybe pure hatred and revulsion.

OK we can accept this law we are discussing because no sensible person will put children at risk by smoking in the car with them - but that is far enough.

Did I clarify my case?
 
OP
J

JimM

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
309
Reaction score
0
Location
Berks, UK
Your Mercedes
W210 E320 CDi Avantgarde Estate 2002
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #45
I can't edit my previous post, sorry...

Here is a more sensible approach, to a much more problematic situation, in France: "Car drivers and passengers will be banned from lighting up in the presence of children under 12."

The UK has less of a problem, Gitanes and Ducados really are the worst ever cigarette and even hardened UK smokers concede that those will kill anyone. ;)

Here is the full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...worlds-toughest-antismoking-laws-9758836.html

Note the targets.
 
Last edited:
OP
J

JimM

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
309
Reaction score
0
Location
Berks, UK
Your Mercedes
W210 E320 CDi Avantgarde Estate 2002
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #46
Being unable to edit or delete older posts is a problem.

Anyway - I did suggest that there will probably be new laws forbidding smoking in our cars completely, and in all open spaces, and then in our homes, and I think you don;t believe that.

Well, here's what has already happened in the good old gun-totin' USA: Goerlitz is forthright on the ‘junk science’ behind the increasingly outlandish claims made about second-hand smoke. The threat of passive smoking has been the key to far-reaching smoking bans around the world during Goerlitz’s time in the tobacco control movement. Today, these bans are being extended to the outdoors and, in parts of California, into people’s own homes.

Here is the full article, Goerlitz is forthright on the ‘junk science’ behind the increasingly outlandish claims made about second-hand smoke. The threat of passive smoking has been the key to far-reaching smoking bans around the world during Goerlitz’s time in the tobacco control movement. Today, these bans are being extended to the outdoors and, in parts of California, into people’s own homes. I ask him how dangerous he thinks second-hand smoke really is.

While you may dismiss these types of report, there is little doubt because Mr Goerlitz was previously a cigarette model, then a strong supporter of the anti-=smoking movement because it was targeted at kids. Then he decided the movement has gone too far as I suggest it will in the UK too.

The records show 1 in 5 UK citizens smoke - at least in my area it is far less, and the gratifying fact is that fewer school children are smoking than in my day, we hardly see a youngster smoking now.

So? Eventually we will die out anyway, many will stop of their own accord, others because of family pressure.

So in turn you need to respect and support our remaining freedoms before smokers are forced to take stronger action, which I also think will happen otherwise.
 

Crazycarb

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2014
Messages
479
Reaction score
1
Age
72
Location
Bury st Edmunds
Your Mercedes
1996 Jag XJ 3.2 , 2x Alfa spiders, 1X Alfa GTV V6 3.0.
Jim, never mind the French, they are hardly a beacon of shining light. Go into any French household with young children and you will see kids as young as 5 being given small amounts of diluted red wine.
Just a quick anecdote here...Back in the 70's when smoking was quite prolific, there was, or maybe still is a restaurant/bar in Whittlesford nera Cambridge called the "tickle arms", run by quite an eccentric guy. It was quite a nice place to eat. One guy, after finishing his meal, lit a fag. The owner, picked up a soda syphon, aimed it at him and pulled the trigger! With this, he shouted in a very well spoken voice..."You do not smoke in MY restaurant! His party got up, paid their bill and went... It was fantastic to watch.
I expect the smokers "stronger action" could be giving up, and denying the govt the taxes? You know it's going to happen, even if you all take your clothes off, and all dance down the Mall in the rain on a Sunday.
 
Last edited:

as400

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2010
Messages
652
Reaction score
11
Location
South Coast.
Your Mercedes
W212 E350cdi
.....
It gets my back up because there is no such being as a "child" who is over 16 years of age, because they are classified as independent adults under UK law, so they are then able to legally turn gay...

...and I'm just guessing here legally able to "turn" straight also?

Bizarre Post Of The Year Award.
 

toby1

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2007
Messages
5,135
Reaction score
599
Location
West Berkshire
Your Mercedes
1998 CL420 C140; 1997 SL500 R129
Very odd indeed, as is the whole thread TBH.

I couldn't wait until I was 16 to find out which way I would turn. :D
 
Last edited:
OP
J

JimM

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
309
Reaction score
0
Location
Berks, UK
Your Mercedes
W210 E320 CDi Avantgarde Estate 2002
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #50
Yeh well, you scoff but I am speaking from knowledge.

I know a few parents who would have done something a bit more painful in repsonse to those announcements were it not for threat of legal action and squeals of "it's my right" and tantrums - and being just over 16.

You only scoff because you either don't have kids or it didn't happen to you - yet. If it does you will be singing another tune, being PC is not "it" when it's not someone else's kids. For some of you it will be "when" and not "if".

Anyway as I said, some of you will be in similar positions not too long from now, with other laws taking your own valued freedoms away, then you will see that this is not so bizarre, when someone decides enough is enough.

Nobody deserves to be treated the way smokers are being treated now, let alone what is to come unless something impressive is done to prevent it.

Continue in your sleep, guys, apologies for trying to wake you up, my mistake. I'm going to look for those other 1's out of every 5. Who knows, maybe some of them have cars too. ;)
 
Last edited:
OP
J

JimM

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
309
Reaction score
0
Location
Berks, UK
Your Mercedes
W210 E320 CDi Avantgarde Estate 2002
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #51
Jim, never mind the French, they are hardly a beacon of shining light. Go into any French household with young children and you will see kids as young as 5 being given small amounts of diluted red wine.
Just a quick anecdote here...Back in the 70's when smoking was quite prolific, there was, or maybe still is a restaurant/bar in Whittlesford nera Cambridge called the "tickle arms", run by quite an eccentric guy. It was quite a nice place to eat. One guy, after finishing his meal, lit a fag. The owner, picked up a soda syphon, aimed it at him and pulled the trigger! With this, he shouted in a very well spoken voice..."You do not smoke in MY restaurant! His party got up, paid their bill and went... It was fantastic to watch.
I expect the smokers "stronger action" could be giving up, and denying the govt the taxes? You know it's going to happen, even if you all take your clothes off, and all dance down the Mall in the rain on a Sunday.

Hi Crazycarb.

The first topic is another very good subject for heated discussion.

If you don't want to get into it just ignore the rest of this post.

Well you see, there is a lesson to be learned by the Brits there - my wife and I allowed our kids a drop of wine or port when they were young and asked if they could taste it. When we were kids, we were allowed the same. It didn't do any of us any harm.

We knew if we denied it repeatedly they would one day guzzle it down when we were out of the house and might even get the wrong bottle containing who knows what - my best brandy maybe?

I know personally that families allow their kids a little alcohol from about 5-6 onwards in Italy, France, Spain, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Germany... and have done it for generations. Their kids don't go binge-drinking behind the backs of their parents because they don't have to, they donlt feel the urge, because their parents allow it in moderation, in their presence, with the family, under watchful eyes, and it's part of every family get-together, and those are frequent.

Teenagers are included in a glass of wine with the extended family, but nobody drinks more than 1-2 glasses. Our own "kids" today rarely drink. Many European kids don't want alcohol when it is offered. There is a big difference in lifestyle though, there is hardly any drinking without food among Italian and Greek and Spanish families. Jewish families too. One bottle of beer is shared between 2-3 people and nobody has more than 2 bottles, about 5-6 small glasses no bigger than half a pint, so 2-3 pints is average. So that is how their kids grow up, not getting drunk and insensible. When they get together in their late teens and early 20s they usually go for coffees, iced coffees, soft drinks, not alcohol.

And none of their kids seem to die of alcohol poisoning at 18 (around 100 per year apparently do die in the UK and USA). Imagine your 18 -year old - bring them up so carefully to 18 then they die stupidly and needlessly on the very day you were looking forward to joking with them that they are now adults and can find their own home and their own money.

And the hundreds, or thousands, who get blind drunk for the first time and narrowly miss death, but you are not near to help to prevent it. Because their "pals" think it's a laugh to give them too much, and even spike their drinks to make them look foolish and do "funny" things like be sick, wet themselves, fall over. All for the "coming of age", eh.

Will you deny this fact too, and tell me again who has more intellect in how best to bring up their kids?

This is why Brit kids are so happy to be able to claim they are adults and independent at 16 - and then at 18 much more so.

The more you protect them the more they will want to try behind your back.

I did, and YOU did, and THEY will. Why have you forgotten it, is it because you remember so well and don't want them to go through it? They will just do it anyway but behind your back where you can't show them the danger and teach them how to avoid it. And in the company of their equally independent, adventurous and dangerous "friends".

At least at that age my pals and I at 12-13 and later limited our bravado to smoking the odd fag or cigar and drinking one WHOLE pint of bitter to feel like "grown ups".

Some of you will know what I am talking about and will priobably keep quiet rather than agree and risk criticism, but most will not and will splutter in their milk that I must have rotted my kids' stomach linings. Well I'm living proof that that is just idiocy.

The second topic is amusing, I happen to know the village but not the restaurant, and I can imagine it happening. If the "landlord" had already announced that he did not want smokiing, then they were warned.

But if he didn't, that is assault. And a bit of blatant stupidity, he must have been drunk to risk losing his business. People may laugh gaily in such circumstances, but may also not return.

But in those days, people were tougher and didn't run crying to the teacher, or the headmaster, or to the police, or to the courts for such a minor thing.

Note my sarcy humour is spread throughout all of these posts but you have to look for it, I was hoping some might have picked it up.
 
Last edited:

PovertySpec

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2014
Messages
1,325
Reaction score
228
Age
16
Location
Hampshire
Your Mercedes
E220 CDi 07/57
...and I'm just guessing here legally able to "turn" straight also?

Bizarre Post Of The Year Award.

"legally turn gay, die of alcohol poisoning, leave home, report their parents to the police
and social care services if they try to restrict or discipline them, have sex with anyone
they like of similar or greater age whether their parents like it or not"


Everyone thought I was a tear-arse when I was a kid but my 16th birthday was quite tame by comparison :(
 
OP
J

JimM

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
309
Reaction score
0
Location
Berks, UK
Your Mercedes
W210 E320 CDi Avantgarde Estate 2002
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #53
You're right, in our day Gay meant Happy. The rest was not allowed - by law.

Today all of this is legal and permitted, and the police will arrest the parents if they exert force to prevent any of it.

Do you get it yet? ;)

No? Look it up.

What have we done?!

It doesn't matter, it's all for the common good, isn't it. :D
 
OP
J

JimM

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
309
Reaction score
0
Location
Berks, UK
Your Mercedes
W210 E320 CDi Avantgarde Estate 2002
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #54
...
For reference, here is a graph showing average life expectancy in the past 150 years.

It has more then doubled in that time without the world going into a meltdown full of old forgotten grannies, so what is the problem if it doubles again in the next 150 years?

Goliath this has bothered me because you don't realise the true situation with the numbers of lonely old people, in exactly that situation, and that is so sad because you and others are ignoring their existence - exactly what I have been highlighting.

Do you remember how many old people were on their own in your neighbourhood when you were young? In the 60s there were very few, but the whole street knew them and looked after them when they had no other family near. Many of them lived with their married "kids" in what I have referred to as the extended family, young kids, parents, and grandparents, all in one house, with an outside loo, in crowded terraced homes.

Today nobody wants to know them but they are still there, in nicer houses, but more alone, and in greater numbers.

Tgheir big kids may pay the bills but can;t visit "as often as we'd like".

Really.

I felt it was my duty.

When the old folk can't cope, they are taken in to homes and their house sold to pay.

Read my earlier post about what they do there in those homes. I have seen many and it ovewhelms me.

If you keep your head in the sand you will accept nothing and will learn nothing and will develop no compassion. Until your turn comes and the truth is revealed to you - too late to complain even if you can by then, because nobody will be listening and you will be the victim.

Try calling Age Concern to verify the truth. Pop in to a home near you and ask to volunteer to help in some way and you will find a whole new big dismal world there. It takes a very strong and caring person to do that. I'm not one of them just yet, but I have so much respect for those people who do and continue to do it and continue to smile for those old souls.

So why live to a ripe old 120, when my wife is gone, and my kids are too busy working, and I snap at them through missing them every time they do come so I put them off without meaning to, and I see them less and less?

So - let me smoke and leave me to die my way, blast you, darned neurotic do-gooders! :D

...
With the advances in medicine people will be healthier for longer (otherwise they will die at the age we do now) so the retirement age will increase and there won't be the 20, 30, 40 years of sitting in an old peoples home without visitors and slowly rotting away that you predict.

Retirement age increases. Yes, it should be 68 by the time my turn comes in 5 years' time.

And of course, I will have a job, won't I.

Hey, that's Great! That means I only have another 5 years to wait until someone gives me a job!

... Which they haven't done for the past few years because... I'm now 60, my previous jobs list includes VP, Director, Consultant, Regional Manager... and I'm stupidly still applying for technical IT jobs...

Ah! I have it! I will apply for... Lollipop man! ... as long as I don't touch any of the kids while I am shepherding them across the road, I should be ok....

But then again, I must try hard to rememebr if I abused any kids when I was 5 or 6, because they are sure to dig that out sooner or later...

Keep going pals, you are sleeping through an awful lot of stupid laws. :D
 

Howard

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 9, 2010
Messages
815
Reaction score
1
Your Mercedes
CLS 500 / A 190
Have you thought about going for a lie down ?
 
OP
J

JimM

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
309
Reaction score
0
Location
Berks, UK
Your Mercedes
W210 E320 CDi Avantgarde Estate 2002
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #57
No, I would need longer breaks, a cigar takes 20 minutes. :D

Howard: Plenty of time for that when we fill our coffins, now if we don't shout out we will be buried alive mate.
 
Last edited:
OP
J

JimM

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
309
Reaction score
0
Location
Berks, UK
Your Mercedes
W210 E320 CDi Avantgarde Estate 2002
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #58
Just out of curiosity (and a diversion) -

How many smokers do you think there are, the official figures are 1 in 5 but round here it's nowhere near that, more like 1 in 20?

Many of the 20 or so adult smokers I know have given up, mostly because of the cost as well as being badgered by others continually, which wore them down.

And watching older kids walking home from senior school, I very rarely see even 1 smoking. There used to be 1 in 20 or so when I were a lad.

What do you see in your area?
 

Crazycarb

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2014
Messages
479
Reaction score
1
Age
72
Location
Bury st Edmunds
Your Mercedes
1996 Jag XJ 3.2 , 2x Alfa spiders, 1X Alfa GTV V6 3.0.
Very rarely do I see smokers around here, I couldn't hazard a guess as to the ratio. I'll bet more people fart in supermarkets now than smoke in public.
 

Frontstep

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
Messages
9,201
Reaction score
3,436
Your Mercedes
T210 320cdi
Just out of curiosity (and a diversion) -

How many smokers do you think there are, the official figures are 1 in 5 but round here it's nowhere near that, more like 1 in 20?

Many of the 20 or so adult smokers I know have given up, mostly because of the cost as well as being badgered by others continually, which wore them down.

And watching older kids walking home from senior school, I very rarely see even 1 smoking. There used to be 1 in 20 or so when I were a lad.

What do you see in your area?


Of my age most have given up so that their children have them round a bit longer, they don't smell,they don't have to ostracise thmselves,they save money and I suppose they are thinking of others more than themselves.
 

Peter Best Insurance is a leading specialist in Mercedes-Benz insurance. All MBO members are eligible for exclusive rates on all our classic car policies.
Call now for our 'BEST' quote. Tel: 01376 573033
Top Bottom