Bristol mum backs call for ban on smoking in cars

Danger: The British Lung Foundation is calling for ban on smoking in cars when children are passengers

A mother from Bristol who is dying from a lung disease, despite never having smoked a cigarette in her life, is backing a campaign to ban smoking in cars when children are passengers.

Lynda Mitchell, 52, suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also known as smoker’s lung. She breathes through tubes and cannot walk unaided.

She believes the illness was caused by the 120 cigarettes a day her parents smoked during her childhood.

She said: “I will die from secondhand smoke and I’ve never smoked in my life. One cigarette in a car is like forcing a child to spend an evening in a nightclub full of smokers.”

The British Lung Foundation Eighty said 86% of parents would support a ban on smoking in cars when kids under the age of 18 are passengers, according to a British Lung Foundation survey out today.

Eighty three per cent of smoking parents said they would back a ban too.

The BLF surveyed 1,020 parents on mumsnet.com. Over half of parents questioned were smokers or had smoked in the past. Five per cent of past smokers had smoked in the car with the window open when travelling with their kids. This figure rose to 13% amongst current smokers.

Over half said they had exposed their child to second hand smoke and 39% were concerned their kids would take up smoking themselves.

Dame Helena Shovelton, Chief Executive of the British Lung Foundation said “Parents are sending a clear message to the Government that smoking in cars with children under the age of 18 should be banned.

“Smoking just one cigarette, even with the car window open, creates a greater concentration of second-hand smoke than a whole evening’s smoking in a pub or a bar. A ban on smoking in the car with children would prevent some of the 22,000 new cases each year of asthma, caused as a direct result of passive smoking. This overwhelming evidence and public support can no longer be ignored and as the only UK charity supporting everyone affected by lung disease, we are calling for this legislation”.

The BLF has launched a national poster advertising campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of passive smoking in the car. The image pictures a young girl in a car being forced to smoke by an adult and the caption reads ‘When you smoke in the car, they smoke’.

To gather support for a ban on smoking in cars when children under 18 are passengers, the charity has launched a Government petition and hopes to collect over 50,000 signatures by the end of the year.