Smoke is out the window – wind it down

It's a lovely fine day; you've got the window wound down, the music pumping and your arm out the window with a cigarette in your hand. But is it still acceptable to smoke in cars?

It used to be the fashionable thing to do – smoking in a 1950s Chevrolet; taking the children on holiday and lighting up during the journey, not worrying about how second-hand smoke might affect them.

But nowadays there are many people lobbying for smoking in cars to be illegal. Not only does the smell of smoke linger in the car long after, but it can even stain the inside of the car, just as smoking in a white room over a long period of time can cause the ceiling to become stained with brown spots. And that's not to mention the side effects it has on people's health.

Some people are behind the idea of governments stepping in to outlaw smoking in cars, while others feel that the government has no right telling anyone what to do within their own cars. That might be well and good, but what about young children who have no option but to breathe in the toxic fumes of cigarette smoke? Would a 3-year-old challenge his or her parents to stop smoking in the car? Of course not, as they are too young to understand the negative effects second-hand smoke can have on them.

Second-hand smoke causes 600, 000 premature deaths each year. According to the World Health Organisation, there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. In infants, it can cause sudden death.

Others argue that smoking in the car is fine as long as the window is wound down for ventilation. But according to a study at Harvard University, if you are driving on an open road at relative speed with the window down, it still isn't enough to completely remove second-hand smoke. Even just 10 seconds of exposure to second-hand smoke can bring about the premature occurrence of asthma in children.

Besides being dangerous to your health, cigarette smoke can build up on the inside of the windshield causing poor visibility, so unless you want to contact your local windscreen repair service after a crash, it would pay to keep the inside of the windshield clean even if you do smoke in the car

It is still legal in most places around the world to smoke in the car. Whether or not it is still acceptable to smoke in the car is another matter in itself. If you smoke in the car, try to do so when you don't have passengers, and especially avoid smoking with children in the car. Finally, you could invest in an electronic cigarette that supposedly gives the same buzz as smoking tobacco, without the harmful effects.