I read this awful news today and so forgive me for using it as a reality check to measure the paranoia of anti-smokers.
They haven't yet got their way on a car smoke ban for the sake of the "chiiildren" but they are pushing ever further with the excuse that smoking in cars kills (insert massive number for dramatic and persuasive affect) each year.
The awful truth is that driving cars is far more risky than smoking in them as the tragic story above shows. Should we, therefore, be tarred as child abusers because we smoke in them? Are we child abusers because we don't choose safer modes of transport like walking, flying, or taking the train?
Each time we get in our vehicles and set off an a journey we are putting our lives and those of our children in danger . Even if we take the greatest care.
The smoking in cars issue should be put into perspective. Most parents err on the side of good manners when children are present. Most of mine have never minded my smoking with the window open - I've asked them. Daughter number one did. She's always hated smoking. She's very tolerant. I'm very polite. We don't have a problem.
In wider society, this used to be called good manners and tolerance and we worked it out between us to the benefits of both sides.
We didn't throw public money legalised discrimination, humiliation dehumanisation and denormalisation to take sides.
What we're paying for in anti-smoker costs panders to hysteria. Their claim that smoking should be banned in cars, and in the home, defies logic and encourages prejudices. It doesn't save lives. Second hand smoke does not kill.
There are greater causes than the anti-smoking issue to fight and real tragedies that deserve our sympathy.
The calls for a smoking ban in cars, in more public places and even people's homes is not about health. It's about spite, hate, prejudice, and paranoid fear.
Will this coalition government continue to waste money on the non-health issue or will it begin to invest in some of those really expensive projects like Hobhole Drain that really would benefit the public and really save lives?
Why am I not hopeful that this trendy NuGovt will get it's priorities right?
UPDATE
The awful story above about the new born baby orphaned when her parents died in a car accident just gets worse