Making driving safer, 1% at a time.

[E. Blackadder]

I've seen a lot of local politics. Usually it's stupid, but not so stupid as to be outright laughable in a just world. But I live in Jersey, where a scandal-tainted governor can announce a three-month-delayed resignation, yet avoid any semblance of a vote on his replacement; where a US Senate campaigner can be switched off the ballot for another for no reason that he would likely lose, and in obvious violation of state law.

So it's no surprise that someone's come up with the idea of fining people who smoke while driving. The AAA has concluded (OK, sponsored and played up a survey) that 1% of accidents are "smoking related", so obviously smokers should be fined up to $250, if they're behind the wheel.

Noting the survey, one could conclude that it woud make much more sense to : Ban multiple occupants in automoobile, especially moving ones; ban radios and other entertainment players, adjustable climate controls, and eating. Perhaps eaters could be treated like Ansche Hedgepath. Towing and impounding the car would simply be icing on the cake.

For those of the link-impaired persuasion

Originally Posted by MSNBC

TRENTON, N.J. - Ashtrays have been disappearing in cars like fins on Cadillacs, and so could smoking while driving in New Jersey, under a measure introduced in the Legislature.

Although the measure faces long odds, it still has smokers incensed and arguing it’s a Big Brother intrusion that threatens to take away one of the few places they can enjoy their habit.

“The day a politician wants to tell me I can’t smoke in my car, that’s the day he takes over my lease payments,” said John Cito, a financial planner from Hackensack with a taste for $20 cigars.

Those cigars, pipes and cigarettes would become no-nos for drivers. Offenders would be stung with a fine of up to $250, under the measure, whose sponsor said it’s designed more to improve highway safety than protect health.

Some states, including New Jersey, have considered putting the brakes on smoking while children are in the car. But none have gone for an outright ban on smoking while driving, according to Washington, D.C.-based Action on Smoking and Health, the country’s oldest anti-tobacco organization.

Smokers, feeling like easy targets, say enough already. They argue they’ve been forced outside office buildings, run off the grounds of public facilities, and asked to pony up more in per-pack excise taxes when states feel a budget squeeze.

“With smoking, it’s becoming increasingly fashionable to target legislation or prohibitions,” said George Koodray, a member of the Metropolitan Cigar Society, a 100-strong group that meets in Paterson for dinner and a smoke.

Distracted drivers
Assemblyman John McKeon, a tobacco opponent whose father died of emphysema, sponsored the legislation. He cites a AAA-sponsored study on driver distractions in which the automobile association found that of 32,000 accidents linked to distraction, 1 percent were related to smoking.

The measure, co-sponsored by Assemblywoman Lorretta Weinberg, a fellow Democrat, was introduced last month just before lawmakers’ summer break. It faces some improbable odds for passing.

Some lawmakers may fear the bill is frivolous compared with more pressing issues like taxes, said political analyst David Rebovich.

And there’s this to consider: Traffic safety groups acknowledge motorists now widely ignore the state’s year-old law against using hand-held cell phones, so why would smoking be any different?

Mitchell Sklar, of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police, said police departments may balk at enforcing such a law. “In general, we’d rather not try to incrementally look at every single behavior and make those a violation,” he said.

Originally Posted by Bloomberg

Last year, for example, [John G. Roberts, Jr.] wrote an opinion rejecting the civil rights claims of 12-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth, who was arrested, searched, handcuffed, booked, and detained by police for eating a single french fry in a subway station in violation of D.C. law. Although an adult committing the same infraction would have received only a citation under D.C. law, Roberts said the police's treatment of Hedgepeth served the "goal of promoting parental awareness and involvement with children who commit delinquent acts.''

[Maxprime]

I really want to be told what to wear when I'm in my car, too.

Does anyone realize that our brothers and sisters are fighting to protect liberties that we are squashing? They will come home to that, and it's an insult.

Back on topic, what right do they have to tell us what to do in our cars? I suppose that Interstates are government property and they, therefore, can regulate what we do on them. This just seems like abuse of power that we have granted them through OUR tax dollars.

[whisper]

Originally Posted by Maxprime

Back on topic, what right do they have to tell us what to do in our cars? I suppose that Interstates are government property and they, therefore, can regulate what we do on them. This just seems like abuse of power that we have granted them through OUR tax dollars.

Although the car is your property, you're driving on public roads. The government is well within its power to tell you how to behave using public roads.

[Super Fly]

Originally Posted by Maxprime

Does anyone realize that our brothers and sisters are fighting to protect liberties that we are squashing? They will come home to that, and it's an insult.

That's misleading, they will come back expecting a hero's welcome and get half the country calling them war criminals. The men and women serving in Iraq couldn't care less about smoking bans in cars when they get home. They'll be preoccupied with getting back to their family and trying to fit in a society that treats soldiers like dirt.

[The Diabolical Biz Markie]

I think they should then fine people who are over 70 and driving, who drive at night, or who drive in rainy conditions.

One more reason not to live in the Northeast. WHY do you people do this to yourselves....

[The Diabolical Biz Markie]

Originally Posted by Maxprime

Does anyone realize that our brothers and sisters are fighting to protect liberties that we are squashing? They will come home to that, and it's an insult.

Unless they come home to a state apart from NJ, which is in their best interest anyway.

[Loner]

Given that more than one percent of people smoke, wouldn't that suggest that we should be REQUIRED to smoke while driving?

The NJ legislature is pretty good at fiddling while Rome burns, this is not surprising.

[Mr. Grim]

Hot chicks wearing skimpy clothes cause many more accidents than smoking. What next? Will they ban hot chicks? Maybe send them all to some hot chick island, hotstralia

[whisper]

Originally Posted by Mr. Grim

Hot chicks wearing skimpy clothes cause many more accidents than smoking. What next? Will they ban hot chicks? Maybe send them all to some hot chick island, hotstralia

You just want a one stop shop, don't you?

[persephone_ashes]

This isn't just a NJ thing. Looks like they're coming up with something similar in FL citing the same AAA data