One thing my mother always told me was that Italian drivers were nuts and I remember her recounting the story of a favourite English Priest who spent time in her mother country.
His overwhelming memory was how trying to cross the road was like taking your life into your own hands and indeed, he almost had his foot run over when he attempted to get from one side to the other in Rome.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I read that Italy is considering a ban on smoking in cars to make drivers safer. I doubt that if such a ban was enforced, the Italian motorists would drive with less passion but then the smoking issue isn't about safety or health in any event and these irritable and unneccessary bans are creeping further into individual liberty and turning citizens into non-descript morons.
At least the article in the Wall Street Journal has this to say : Where is this tide of norms leading? The U.K. government is also considering the banning of smoking in the vicinity of children—no matter where, including private houses. Alas, the "where" is a crucial part. What governments are creeping toward is full sovereignty over citizens' private lives. Public health comes before property rights—this is the lesson. But how does this fit into the rules of a free society?
The existence of a space that is free from government intervention is the cornerstone of a free society. "On himself, over his body and mind, the individual is sovereign," to quote John Stuart Mill. This presupposes the very existence of a space where such sovereignty could find a home: private property defines such a space.
The government doesn't own restaurants (luckily), nor cars besides those used by ministers and high civil servants. It can properly regulate their use to prevent a reckless or dangerous behavior. But assuming that lighting up a cigarette is a distraction seriously affecting the other drivers, pushes the notion of negative externalities too far—and the realm of personal privacy too far back.
Read the article linked below about moves to further persecute smokers in the false name of good health and safety ( a new weapon now used to beat smokers).
* One final point of note is that in the years that I have covered a magistrates court, I only saw one motorist fined for a minor one car collision caused because the woman driver was reaching down into the footwell of her car to reach for a packet of fags as she drove. ONE CASE IN 10 YEARS. This monumental act of stupidity is not exclusive to one smoker but any other nut reaching down for something without pulling over and stopping first.