Ulster drivers face ban on smoking at the wheel (even without kids)

[The Straight Story]

Ulster drivers face ban on smoking at the wheel


It is regarded as one of the last havens for smokers. But the car is a refuge no more. Lighting up in motor vehicles is to be made illegal as part of a major road safety strategy being introduced by the devolved government in Belfast.

Northern Ireland's environment minister Arlene Foster confirmed yesterday that a ban on smoking while at the wheel is one of a series of measures aimed at cutting the relatively high death toll on the province's roads. According to police figures, 126 people died on the roads in Northern Ireland in 2006. Last year the Police Service of Northern Ireland said that figure had fallen to 112.

"This is one of a range of proposals which will be considered in the preparation for a New Road Safety Strategy," the Democratic Unionist minister said.

"Reducing death and serious injuries on our roads is my top priority. I have already instructed my officials to prepare a new road safety strategy for introduction in January 2010," she said.

Foster is understood to have been won round to banning smoking in cars and lorries after a court case connected to a fatal road crash in Northern Ireland in which two children died. In April 2006 Wayne Johnston was jailed for five years on two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one of causing grievous bodily injury.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/29/northernireland.smoking