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Ban on smoking cigarettes in all vehicles
Cigars, pipes and cigarettes slow your blood flow, cut off oxygen to your feet and hands and cause heart attacks and strokes (Quit-Smoking-top.com). Based on this information, should people be allowed to smoke in cars?
Driving a car, while smoking, can be a problem. If a person suddenly gets distracted while reaching for a cigarette or starts to have a heart attack or stroke, he or she could crash into numerous people killing them.
Cigarettes and tobacco smoke are full of chemicals and poisons. Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals most of which are very harmful. The toxins themselves can inhibit a person from driving carefully. Plus smoking is a major risk factor for coronary artery disease and heart attack. On highways with speed limits of over fifty m.p.h. or more, this can be very dangerous (Quit-Smoking-top.com).
Cigarette smoking harms both mother and fetus. If a man is smoking in a car and a pregnant woman is with him she will be constantly exposed to second hand smoke. Secondhand smoke is very harmful for a child. It causes reduction in a baby’s weight and birth defects of heart, brain and face. It can even cause sudden infant death syndrome and deficiency in physical growth, intellectual development and behavior (Merck Manual).
Smoking in a car also puts other people’s, especially children’s, lives in danger. Children’s lungs are still developing and exposure to secondhand smoke can result in coughing, wheezing, phlegm and breathlessness. Even brief exposure to smoke can be lethal for children (American Lung Association).
Secondhand smoke contains more than 250 chemicals that are toxic or cancerous. It causes 150,000 to 300,000 acute lower respiratory tract infections like pneumonia and bronchitis in children each year. Many of these infections result in hospitalizations (American Lung Association).
Moreover smoking can cause children to suffer from ear infections. Eventually it can even cause hearing loss. Especially in enclosed areas such as a car, the smoke has no where to go but to spread internally. This causes discomfort and health hazards for the children (American Lung Association).
Smoking also impairs the lungs defenses by damaging the tiny hair like cells lining the airways that normally carry mucus toward the mouth and help expel toxic substances. These abnormalities impair the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. With age cigarette smokers lose lung function which can be very dangerous for a person driving a car (Merck Manual).
Sometimes while driving a car the cigarette slips from the smoker’s hand and falls off. This distraction can cause an accident. Plus the car itself can catch fire, the seat can get burnt and if this is an oil tanker then it could burst into flames killing many and sending even more to hospitals.
A Ban on smoking in all vehicles should be placed. It will improve highway safety and provide safety and better health for minors as well as adults. Moreover it will keep innocent civilians on the road safe from possible accidents.
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