By Rules on smoking in a car with children
The Children and Families Act 2015 made smoking in cars with children an offence.
The law makes it clear that it’s illegal to smoke in a private vehicle with someone under age 18 present and fail to prevent smoking in a private vehicle with someone under age 18 present.
The law doesn’t apply to a convertible car with the roof completely down but does apply to all vehicles ‘wholly or partly enclosed by a roof’.
It still applies if you have windows or a sunroof open though, if you have the air conditioning on and if you sit in the open doorway of the vehicle.
The rules don’t apply to e-cigarettes. Failing to prevent smoking in a smoke-free private vehicle in England and Wales risks a fixed penalty notice of £50.
Failing to prevent smoking in a smoke-free private vehicle in England and Wales risks a fixed penalty notice of £50.
Unsplash
Asthma attacks in children dropped after car smoking ban in Scotland.
The Smoking Prohibition (Children in Motor Vehicles) Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2016, making it illegal to smoke in a vehicle carrying anyone under the age of 18.
Five years on, new research has found that this change in the law was associated with a marked decrease in hospital admissions in the under-five age group.
The research, which was led by the University of Glasgow, in collaboration with the Universities of Aberdeen and Stirling, looked at data on all asthma emergency hospitalisations in Scotland between 2000 and 2018 amongst children aged 16 and under.
It found that, after the smoke-free vehicle legislation was passed, asthma hospitalisations fell by 1.49% per month among pre-school children, though not in older children.
