Florida High Schoolers Propose Law Against Smoking with Kids in the Car

When you were a kid do you remember going for Sunday rides or vacation car trips, trapped in the back seat (unseat- belted of course) with your sister or brother, while up in the front seat both parents were smoking. You sat there happily inhaling the smoke and soaking up the odor of smoldering cigarette butts.

Those were the days before the dangers of second hand smoke were ever talked about. Everybody smoked. Smoking was cool. No one was worried about getting asthma or lung cancer then.

Now many years later a lot has changed. We are bombarded with anti smoking restrictions everywhere. We are told about the dangers of smoking and second hand smoke. But one freedom has remained...we can still smoke in our car and slowly poison the kids if we want to.

Today going for a ride in the car is far more complicated than it ever was, especially with kids. There are laws making seat belts mandatory. Air bags are required. More and more laws are being made everyday to protect us from ourselves and each other. Kids must be in the back seat with age appropriate car seats or restraints.

Gone are the days of putting a new baby in a car bed. No more can a little kid stand up in the back of the car looking over Daddy's shoulder, or sit on Grandma's lap. There are laws telling us what to do and what we must have when we put the kids in the car.

Strange as it may seem, one thing remains the same as it did in those dangerous yesterdays. The driver and adults can still smoke in the car, poisoning the air with second hand smoke, plus creating all kinds of toxic fumes for the kids to inhale.

This might be OK now for the clueless adults, but if a bunch of bright Tampa high school kids have their way, things are going to change. The teens are proposing a new law banning smoking in Florida cars when kids are present.

The bill Florida Senate Bill 2596 has a good chance of passing. Eight Tampa high school students have testified in front of the Florida Department of Transportation. The bill will go to the Senate. Several other states, Arkansas, Louisiana, Connecticut, Delaware, California and Maine already have a smoke free car with kids inside law.

The bill was designed by the students as part of a required project in their "There Ought to be a Law" civics class. It bans smoking in a car or truck if anyone under the age of 16 is inside.

As it stands now, the bill while it bans smoking in a car or truck if anyone under the age of sixteen is inside, restricts the police from stopping drivers who are smoking with kids in the car. If passed, the crime would be a secondary offense. Drivers could only be charged and fined $100 if pulled over for a different violation.

Tampa high schools participating in the project are Tampa Bay Tech, Durant High School and Bloomingdale High School.

Sources:

St. Pete Times

no-smoke.org

panhandleparade.com

personal experience