SC Bill Would Ban Smoking In Cars While Children Present

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Drivers or passengers who puff away with a child under 6 in the car could be fined in South Carolina under a legislative proposal.

Proponents say it’s about protecting children from the dangers of second-hand smoke, including increased asthma attacks, ear and respiratory infections, as well as cancer.

The bill says if children are young enough to need to be in a safety seat, the air they breathe inside a vehicle should be cloud-free.

“The child is a victim,” Rep. Joan Brady, R-Columbia, said Wednesday. “They really are held captive in a car.”

The idea has died twice before in the libertarian-leaning South Carolina Legislature. But it got a boost last month when the new bi-partisan Committee on Children – made up of legislators, agency heads, and residents – recommended its passage.

Brady, the committee’s co-chairman, said she’s still not overly optimistic about its chances, but added the debate is an opportunity to discuss the health issues and educate the public.

The State

When I was a kid my father used to smoke a cigar when we’d be driving on long trips.  He’d crack the window open and the smoke went right out.  I don’t have any health problems today.  My grandfather smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes a day most of his life and neither my grandmother, my mother, nor any of her brothers and sisters have smoking related health issues.  I have always been very skeptical regarding some of what I consider to be outrageous claims pertaining to the affects of second hand smoke.

Personally, do I think a parent should be smoking in a car with the windows up when they’ve got a little kid with them?  No, but then I don’t know anyone would smoke in their car with the windows up anyway.  Even when I used to smoke many years ago I didn’t do that. I am guessing very few smokers do.

But this gets back to something I have warned about for a long time and that is keeping the government nanny state out of our personal lives and our family.  This is a parental issue, not a government one.  I’m sure in the minds of Representative Joan Brady (R-Columbia) and Senator Darrell Jackson (D-Hopkins) they feel they are doing the public a good service, but that’s when we start walking down the road to authoritarianism.  The government has infringed on a lot of our freedoms in the name of protecting the children and once you let them in the door, they don’t leave.  Again, I point to New York City.

Yes, I think that people who would smoke in a car with their windows up with children in it shouldn’t be named parents of the year, but you know what?  No matter how many nanny state laws we pass children are always going to be exposed to some risk from something.  You can’t child proof being a child and even if you could, what kind of childhood would that be anyway?  This is about individual responsibility and choice and Brady, Jackson, and the other nanny staters need to butt out and put their focus on their own families instead of ours.

Share

Read more at Carolina Politics Online