Planned legislation to ban smoking in cars while children are inside
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The government is reportedly planning legislation that would make it illegal to light a cigarette in a car in which children under the age of 18 are passengers.
The Lahti-based newspaper Etelä-Suomen Sanomat wrote on Tuesday that the government plans to put a bill on the matter before Parliament in the coming weeks.
Under the proposal, there would be no actual punishment for violators.
Ismo Tuominen, a high-ranking official at the Ministry for Social Affairs and Health, says that the reason for the ban is that studies have shown that smoke in the small space of a car is more harmful than smoke inside a restaurant, for instance.
Tuominen says that there is international evidence that a few per cent of children are subjected to tobacco smoke in a car.
“In Finland, this means tens of thousands of children”, Tuominen says.
Smoking in a car with children is already banned in South Africa, as well as in parts of the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Tuominen believes that the ban would have practical effects, even if no punishment is threatened.
He said that police would not incur any additional work over the ban, and that the main effect would be an appeal to people’s personal sense of morality.
Stopping or reducing smoking in a car is medically sensible, says Henrik Riska, head physician of the Clinic for Pulmonary Disease at the Helsinki University Central Hospital.
“Smoking is dangerous in an enclosed space. Children are more susceptible than older people.”
The proposed law would not be the only one in Finland in which there is no punishment set for violators.
For instance, violators of the mandatory use of bicycle helmets are not punished, and police do not always have the time to enforce laws that are on the books on using a mobile phone without a hands-free device while driving.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 16.9.2009 - TODAY |
 Planned legislation to ban smoking in cars while children are inside |
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