Smoking in Cars

Throwing cigarette butts out the window is already illegal in many places. It's not enforced very well, though.

Thorgasm said:

No it isn't. We can't even make it 100% possible to stop drinking and driving, cell phone use, or other distractions while driving.

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As I said, it's impossible to change the behaviors of addicts unless they want to take on the responsibility of the consequences of their behaviors.

OUR WORLD USES CARS TO TRANSPORT US ALL, men, women, and children alike. If you want that part of your life discontinued, the advocate for such. Start a movement to end the use of cars. But until then...all you owe your children and their health, welfare and well being is to STOP SMOKING. Then if you can bring yourself to stop drinking, using the cell phone, etc...even the better for you and your children. Your children and other in another car might benefit from your personal changes in your own driving behaviors. But your children don't have to power to make you change your behaviors. You are at the wheel, they aren't.

Removable Mind said:

OUR WORLD USES CARS TO TRANSPORT US ALL, men, women, and children alike. If you want that part of your life discontinued, the advocate for such. Start a movement to end the use of cars.

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You realize that the part in bold is a strawman, right? nobody here is trying to end the use of cars. Consenting adults can use whatever mode of transport they desire. I am only talking about it when children are held hostage and their lives placed at risk and doind somehting to stop deaths and injuries to children that are 100% preventable!!!!.

Perhaps you are using the strawman because the actual proposal relies on the exact same logic that you have presented put into a different context.

@Tucker Case

A. The benefits of the usage of cars outweighs the cost. Kids can't walk to the emergency room if they get hit by a car; they have to have a faster means of transportation. On the other hand, there is no benefit to smoking that outweighs the costs, including the ones to children.

B. Engineers are working on cars that will "drive themselves". This will nearly eliminate the issue.

C. All we ask is that the smoker pull down their windows, or wait until his kids aren't present. This should be enforced because it is preventable, unlike car crashes, which removal of children will actually be more harmful to the children.

Tucker Case said:

You realize that the part in bold is a strawman, right? nobody here is trying to end the use of cars. Consenting adults can use whatever mode of transport they desire. I am only talking about it when children are held hostage and their lives placed at risk and doind somehting to stop deaths and injuries to children that are 100% preventable!!!!.

Perhaps you are using the strawman because the actual proposal relies on the exact same logic that you have presented put into a different context.

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There are other ways to prevent child injuries and deaths due to crashes. Unlike smoking, cars are a keystone in today's society. We aren't even trying to make smokers not smoke with kids; just not with the windows closed. You are presenting a strawman by suggesting we remove children entirely from the equation, which is not true.

Wake said:

Earlier today I heard a conversation about Arkansas, and the illegality of smoking in cars with the windows up. According to them, it's illegal to smoke in a car with children that are, iirc, 6 years of age or younger? I don't know which law this is, and have beeb searching for it to find out exactly what the law entails.

I have this link that seems to support the conversation I heard: Law on smoking in car with children could change Arkansas - The Debate Team - BabyCenter

Assuming this is true, I have no problem with the law.

In fact, I'd like to see smoking in cars with the windows up completely banned, because I've heard 2nd/3rd-hand smoke is pretty dangerous.

Would you like to see this law applied for the whole country? What do you think?

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Before we go off, half cocked, lets see if this works.
Similar to the Affordable Health Care Act which was first(I think) established in Massachusetts, we must learn, at all times... an open heart, an open mind..
And lets not fall in love with our rights to the detriment of others !

Tucker Case said:

You realize that the part in bold is a strawman, right? nobody here is trying to end the use of cars. Consenting adults can use whatever mode of transport they desire. I am only talking about it when children are held hostage and their lives placed at risk and doind somehting to stop deaths and injuries to children that are 100% preventable!!!!.

Perhaps you are using the strawman because the actual proposal relies on the exact same logic that you have presented put into a different context.

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Knowing that unavoidable elements that are responsible for compounding kid's hostage situation in vehicles - you know, by adding addition hazardous don't really make sense. Perhaps your blinders will fall off one day and realize that we have to work with what we know.

You know that cars aren't going away...ever. But that childrens' deaths and injuries should be used as an inspiration to invent the means to substantially reduce those types of casualities resulting from all the various reasons that we are all aware pose as the most predomonate risks.

Of all of those risks...one of the very easiest places to start is where? Stop smoking, texting, and other behaviors that are totally within the control of the drivers. RESPECT FOR OTHERS is paramount, but way more importantly, respect for children who don't have any control over their own lives and rely on their safety and welfare to those who are their daily guardians and keepers.

MadLib said:

There are other ways to prevent child injuries and deaths due to crashes. Unlike smoking, cars are a keystone in today's society. We aren't even trying to make smokers not smoke with kids; just not with the windows closed. You are presenting a strawman by suggesting we remove children entirely from the equation, which is not true.

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The children are the primary ingredient in this equation...and discussion...
And religion poisons nothing; its man's interpretation than can be ruinous.
And, why is it that arguments from liberals are so logical, make so much sense ???

earthworm said:

The children are the primary ingredient in this equation...and discussion...
And religion poisons nothing; its man's interpretation than can be ruinous.
And, why is it that arguments from liberals are so logical, make so much sense ???

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Strawman. Yes, they are the primary ingredient, but we're not suggesting that we need to remove them entirely from the equation. We just want to make the world a little safer for them.

Bring up my signature in my profile, not here.

MadLib said:

There are other ways to prevent child injuries and deaths due to crashes. Unlike smoking, cars are a keystone in today's society. We aren't even trying to make smokers not smoke with kids; just not with the windows closed. You are presenting a strawman by suggesting we remove children entirely from the equation, which is not true.

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Preventing smokers from closing the windows on cars with kids inside is a strawman because it's not enforceable to a realistic degree. Why make legislation that isn't even possible because you're trying to make a statement? I think the counter argument of removing children from dangerous vehicles makes a comparative analogy because neither is sensible.

MadLib said:

@Tucker Case

A. The benefits of the usage of cars outweighs the cost. Kids can't walk to the emergency room if they get hit by a car; they have to have a faster means of transportation.

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Well, I thought it would be obvious that emergency vehicles like ambulances would be an exception to the ban. Since it wasn't obvious, I will now clarify that point for you: Emergency vehicles like ambulances, would be an exception to the ban for obvious reasons.

If a parent decides to transport their child to the hospital on tjheir own after an accident like the one you describe, they should be charged with reckless endangerment. Such transporting of injured individuals should be left to experts.

B. Engineers are working on cars that will "drive themselves". This will nearly eliminate the issue.

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And if that completely ends all motor vehicle accidents, the ban can be rescinded.

C. All we ask is that the smoker pull down their windows, or wait until his kids aren't present.

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Laws don't ask, they force.

This should be enforced because it is preventable, unlike car crashes, which removal of children will actually be more harmful to the children.

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I've reread this about 5 times and it still is not making sense to me. Are you saying that car crashes involving children aren't preventable? If so, you are wrong. I've described an impossibly simple way to prevent them.

Are you also saying that this prevention would be more harmful to children? If so, I simply laugh at the absurdity of your claim and ask you to provide at just one single shred of evidence to support the idea that children not being in cars is more harmful than children being in cars (which is, to stress the point, the #1 cause of death and serious injury for children under the age of 18).

The only noticeable negative effect my proposal would have is that it would inconvenience many parents who would need to put their child's safety above their own convenience.

MadLib said:

There are other ways to prevent child injuries and deaths due to crashes.

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There is nothing that can even come remotely close to being as effective as what I have proposed. Nothing. My proposal would also manage to accomplish the goal that y'all are seeking.

Why should we allow parents to put their own convenience over the safety of there children? Why do you put convenience above child safety?

BTW, I'm not presenting a strawman. You really should look that term up before accusing someone of doing it. I'm presenting an alternative solution that !. Accopmplishes the stated goal of protecting children and B. Employs the logic that others are using in a different context.

This is more correctly called a reduction to absurdity argument, and it is used to show the flaws in someone's logic.

Note the way that the arguments against my proposal universally fail to address the fact that it does accomplish the stated goals. Far more effectively than their proposal does. It also prevets the very thing that they want to prevent, giving it an added layer of efficacy.

Force the kids to stay inside their homes 24/7/365 until they are legal adult age. Oh, but wait, what about those parents who force kids to live in the home where they smoke?

The idea that second hand smoke hurts anybody is literally a stupid idea that has no scientific backing what so ever...

Bodhisattva said:

The idea that second hand smoke hurts anybody is literally a stupid idea that has no scientific backing what so ever...

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That's what the CEO's of all of the Cigarette companies claimed. They lied! Their lies almost shutdown the industry. But true addicts still are working busily to mame and kill themselves despite solid evidence that smoking mames and kills.

Now that I think about it...if a person who is just a bystander who is force to breath cigarette smoke...might be subject to the same health issues as people who lit it up and draws in smoke...and exhales smoke.

Sorry, Bod, but (and I'm not wasting time to do research for you) there's plenty of information and evidence contrary to your claim. Come on, Bod, your a person who works in education...you know there's plenty of evidence that secondhand smoke is dangerous.

You were just throwing out a burning straw man just waiting for me to come by and shout "fire".

All this empirical data about second hand smoke always seemed suspect too me. How can you possibly prove that one with all the extenuating variables? Now first hand smoking, no doubt. But being in a room with circulation inhaling and causing enough damage to be significant, doubtful unless it's extreme. We're exposed to so many other more harmful substances in comparison. I remember George Burns talking about smoking cigars and said he had several doctors who claimed he'd die if he didn't stop, he outlived them all. Guess second hand smoke didn't hurt him that much.

Removable Mind said:

That's what the CEO's of all of the Cigarette companies claimed. They lied! Their lies almost shutdown the industry. But true addicts still are working busily to mame and kill themselves despite solid evidence that smoking mames and kills.

Now that I think about it...if a person who is just a bystander who is force to breath cigarette smoke...might be subject to the same health issues as people who lit it up and draws in smoke...and exhales smoke.

Sorry, Bod, but (and I'm not wasting time to do research for you) there's plenty of information and evidence contrary to your claim. Come on, Bod, your a person who works in education...you know there's plenty of evidence that secondhand smoke is dangerous.

You were just throwing out a burning straw man just waiting for me to come by and shout "fire".

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If you can't do any research then you must not feel very confident about being correct...

Bodhisattva said:

If you can't do any research then you must not feel very confident about being correct...

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I've provided research. If you chose to actually read through the thread instead of reading the first few posts and then replying, you wouldn't have demanded research.

Tucker Case said:

Well, I thought it would be obvious that emergency vehicles like ambulances would be an exception to the ban. Since it wasn't obvious, I will now clarify that point for you: Emergency vehicles like ambulances, would be an exception to the ban for obvious reasons.

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I can turn the tables on you with the reductio ad absurdum. Watch:

Are you saying that ambulances can't crash?

Laws don't ask, they force.

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Fair enough.

I've reread this about 5 times and it still is not making sense to me. Are you saying that car crashes involving children aren't preventable? If so, you are wrong. I've described an impossibly simple way to prevent them.

Are you also saying that this prevention would be more harmful to children? If so, I simply laugh at the absurdity of your claim and ask you to provide at just one single shred of evidence to support the idea that children not being in cars is more harmful than children being in cars (which is, to stress the point, the #1 cause of death and serious injury for children under the age of 18).

The only noticeable negative effect my proposal would have is that it would inconvenience many parents who would need to put their child's safety above their own convenience.

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The dangers of cigarette smoking have become apparent only recently. We still don't know how many deaths SHS causes.

I understand your logic, and I understand and admire your debating skills in this matter. But there are still a few flaws.

A. Most kids don't die in car accidents, yet most kids are in cars. On the other hand, second hand smoke has been shown to cause problems when it is around people.

B. Again, the benefits to driving children in cars outweighs the costs. Kids can be taken to the doctor's office, and to school that is far away. There are literally no benefits to children who are in a car with a smoker.

MadLib said:

There are literally no benefits to children who are in a car with a smoker.

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What about children in a car with a flatulence releaser? Shouldn't we ban that also by similar reasoning? If cows are increasing greenhouse gases, how much more pollution are 7.5 billion human poonters destroying the atmosphere with? Save the children, don't pull fingers!

MadLib said:

I've provided research. If you chose to actually read through the thread instead of reading the first few posts and then replying, you wouldn't have demanded research.

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Who are you? I was talking to somebody that made a claim... are you making a claim? If so, provide the evidence.

Otherwise... stay quite.

Good job.

Bodhisattva said:

Who are you? I was talking to somebody that made a claim... are you making a claim? If so, provide the evidence.

Otherwise... stay quite.

Good job.

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You made the claim that secondhand smoke was not harmful harmful. You! We've provided research for it, which you either didn't notice or ignored. The person who you were debating also provided evidence.

MadLib said:

I can turn the tables on you with the reductio ad absurdum. Watch:

Are you saying that ambulances can't crash?

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That's not really reductio ad absurdum. There is a legitimate concern there.regarding the number of children killed or injured in ambulance accidents yearly. I'm personally not aware of any such accidents, but they are certainly possible. Ultimately, though, we have to weigh the risk to benefit scenario with regard to child safety.

We know that using an ambulance to transport a child is, at least, is slightly risky. However, not transporting the child in an ambulance has the potential to be extremely risky. It would actually be less safe for the child to not be transported by ambulance, therefore the exception makes sense, since the stated goal is to maximize the safety of children.

The dangers of cigarette smoking have become apparent only recently. We still don't know how many deaths SHS causes.

I understand your logic, and I understand and admire your debating skills in this matter. But there are still a few flaws.

A. Most kids don't die in car accidents, yet most kids are in cars. On the other hand, second hand smoke has been shown to cause problems when it is around people.

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Ah, but most children exposed to SHS smoke do not have any serious problems from it. There are correlations between SHS exposure and health problems, but they are by no means a 100% correlation. These health problems are only present in a minority of those exposed to SHS.

Hell, most of the adverse effects of first-hand smoke only occur in a minority of people who smoke.

But when the issue is specifically harm to children, we know that being driven in cars does more harm to children each year than SHS exposure does. But, as I noted before, my proposal also accomplishes the goal of reducing the number of children exposed to SHS in cars to as close to 0 as possible (and, in all honesty, it'd probably reduce that number a good deal more than a simple ban on smoking in cars containing children would)

Therefore, I don't see how you can claim that this is a flaw in my logic. My logic is focused entirely on the safety of children and preventing harm to children which is 100% preventable. My proposal takes care of this on multiple levels. If no kids were in cars, then no kids would die in car accidents. My logic does not care if most kids are not harmed by the danger. It is only concerned with the fact that some kids are harmed.

Obviously proponents of a ban on smoking in cars that contain children do not care that most kids are not harmed, or else they would not be proponents of that ban. I have to employ the exact same logic in order for my position to remain reductio ad absurdum. (granted, there is a premise that most of the proponents of such a ban have left unstated which I am not including, but that unstated premise is both their primary premise and teh one that prevents them form actually supporting my proposal.)

B. Again, the benefits to driving children in cars outweighs the costs. Kids can be taken to the doctor's office, and to school that is far away. There are literally no benefits to children who are in a car with a smoker.

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I respond to this by asking why you think that convenience is more important than children's lives? Because the only benefits you mention are ones of convenience, and the costs are children's lives and health.

Let's alter your statement so that the terms "benefits" and "costs" are replaced by what they actually are instead of terminology that hides what they are:

the conveniences of driving children in cars outweighs the dead and injured children who died form being driven in cars.

Another bonus of my plan is that it forces parents to start being more active with their children. Instead of driving their child a mile to school, they'll have to walk them over there. Given the fact that far too many children in this country are now morbidly obese due to their sedentary lifestyle, this twice-daily walk to school will actually help them on a whole new level, preventing even further health problems in the future (obesity surpassed smoking as the #1 preventable cause of death a few years back).

Thus, not only will my plan save lives directly by preventing children from dying in car accidents, it will also prevent any children from being exposed to second hand smoke in cars AND it will play a role in preventing childhood obesity.

I don't see anyone else proposing anything even remotely close to being as efficient in saving children and preventing them from coming to harm. And all of these things my proposal helps with are 100% preventable!

I really cannot understand why my proposal is getting so much resistance from those who claim to only want to make the world a little safer for children. My proposal would undeniably make the world a lot safer for them. On three levels: 1. reducing SHS exposure 2. reducing obesity and 3. by totally eliminating the #1 killer of children under 18. How can people who want 1 possibly be opposed to 2 and 3?

MadLib said:

You made the claim that secondhand smoke was not harmful harmful. You! We've provided research for it, which you either didn't notice or ignored. The person who you were debating also provided evidence.

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That is kinda weak... I am debating you or that person... if you presented evidence during a debate with A DIFFERENT PERSON then it is not up to me to go search through the thread to find the evidence, it is up to you to represent it. If you don't want to that is fine but to say that I need to go searching for evidence that you simply say you presented is completely ridiculous.

Tucker Case said:

I really cannot understand why my proposal is getting so much resistance from those who claim to only want to make the world a little safer for children. My proposal would undeniably make the world a lot safer for them. On three levels: 1. reducing SHS exposure 2. reducing obesity and 3. by totally eliminating the #1 killer of children under 18. How can people who want 1 possibly be opposed to 2 and 3?

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I think I know where your premise is flawed. You're proposing your argument on the logic that SHS eliminated in cars with children is based on what's good for them and everyone as a whole. When in actuality it's based on making a select few who want to enforce it to feel good about themselves supposedly helping the poor children. See they're not exploiting the children to accomplish their agenda to unfairly, over-regulate a lawful product, thereby stifling the freedoms of others or they would've obviously had seen the more rational and sensible suggestions you've made that if it's truly about saving children from harm, then transport them safer and reduce obesity by eliminating sugary and fast food. Also as a matter of preventable source of injuries children are hurt by atv's, snowmobiles, skateboards, bicycles, boats, sports, theme parks, playgrounds etc.

They call that "reductio ad absurdum" because it presents an inconvenience to reduce or eliminate these unsafe activities but I would definitely call, stopping SHS in a car the "theatre of the absurd" as a way of reducing harm in comparison to more serious sources. I guess then we can't assume that "no smoking in cars" is based in logic as much as political control of peoples freedoms, which are being eroded daily by reason of profit and correctness. But of course eliminating an adults choices or liberty hurts nobody, except the very concept this nation was founded on.