Thaaaaank Yooooouuuu. its about time.

Thats just what we need. Policemen who earn close to $100,000.00 (includes benefits) checking cars to see if anyone is smoking, and then to check I.D.'s to determine if anyone in the car is under the age of 16.

At the same time they can bring along a scale and a tape measure to weigh and measure them to see if they should be in a booster seat.

Then they can check to ensure that they have their seatbelts fastened.

Next if they need changing, they can force the Mother to change their diapers before she is allowed to drive any further.

Meanwhile half the bicycle riders in Prnce George,and especially downtown are riding up and down the sidewalks, without any helmets, and the police ignore them.

To many stupid laws are not good for a Country. As Pierre Trudeau said. The Government has no business in the bedrooms of the Nation. I agree, and I beleive that they have little or no place in our cars either.

While they are checking for all the above infractions, they might want to check the statistics to see how many kids have been killed by exploding Airbags, and how many kids have had their necks broken because of improper seat belt legislation. (Initially)

This is great news! It must mean that there is no real crime left to fight. Well done!

another cash grab off the working people.

Thank God..it's about time they started to protect children from their thoughtless parents!

Nothing urks me more than, kids unbuckled and a parent(s) choking back a cancer stick!
I say charge $500 1st offence,2nd Offence they go take a parenting course, 3rd offence lose children.

My question is where will the fine money go?

It's bad enough we pay the smokers medical costs! I hope it goes towards paying the medical costs smokers create!

Q)If a car is stopped and underage children are subject to being posioned,does the RCMP cab the children home?
If not, i'm sure as all heck the person charged will be so pissed and most likely will reach for a cancer stick.

I hope they start taxing fat people for our health costs. They're the real problem. Stupid laws is correct. I'm under 16 and I can't buy cigarettes. I can have all the sexual relationships I want and have a baby at the age of 14 but oh no - - not a cigarette. This country has lost it's common sense. People have more freedom in Russia or China. Smoking is legal and having sex with a 14 year old should not be. It is amazing how socialism inevitably turns into communism.

I saw you picking your nose while driving, the fine should be good for $300.00. And I could of swore I saw you give your spouse a peck on the cheek at a red light that'll cost you another 300.00

I for one, fully support this law - in spite of all the bleating by the perpetrators who'd do this on a regular basis, not only with their own kids, but anyone else's kids that have the misfortune of being in that car with a@@holes who don't give a damn about anyone else but themselves.

I wonder how many of those marijuana smokers would do this in their cars too, if they ever succeed in geting it legalized, and declared a "harmless pastime", instead of a restricted substance. (Just goes to show what its already done to their brains), --- but that's another subject.

Like it or not, continuously subjecting children to a nicotine saturated environment, will help them become more easily addicted themselves some day, because they will be forced to develop a tolerance to breathing that raw, unfiltered, second-hand smoke wafting off the end of all those thousands of smokes "Mom" and "Dad" had every day of their youg lives not only in their home, and for some, the car too.

Give the kids a break you Guys -- they can't speak up for themselves.

Thank God, (oops - not supposed to mention God anymore either) -- someone is trying to do something to protect them. If nothing else - this law will make the public more conscious of who dosen't care about the health of their children when they see a cigarette hanging out of their mouth while driving, and kids in the back.
Sooner or later - someone's gonna give them the finger.

Let me see. I pick the kid up from school. We drive home for 10 minutes. I light up. Windows are down on a nice warm sunny day. Police siren goes behind me. I look at my speedometer .... 55 klicks in a 50 km/hr zone. Not for me. Sadly mistaken as he pulls in front of me and slows down.

We have words. He gives me a warning with a fine next time.

I butt out and drive home.

Later that evening, we watch a movie together for a couple of hours. I drink some beer. His mother and I light up a couple of times each.

Another "normal" night with the family together. Still scratching my head about that cop earlier in the day.

I don't smoke. I'm not concerned about smoking anywhere or any place; it's legal. Last I heard the BC government makes 6 billion a year from cigarette taxes(not researched info) Where do you suppose they would get that money if all the smokers quit? Do you not think the smokers are paying their share of health tax? I believe the governments number 1 priority should be to keep the economy rolling and make every Canadian wealthy and happy. Legislating assenine laws to fill the coffers, under the smoke-screen of 'health' is not a good law. What people do in their own vehicles is no business of mine or yours. Smoking is legal and I've been around long enough to know that second hand smoke never killed anyone. The constant 'incessant rant' about second hand smoke is more likely to kill you than any amount of smoke.

BTW, do children now have to have an ID showing age so that the fact that they are undr 16 can be verified?

gee, maybe all the anti smoking zealots ought to turn their attention to going after people who have DRUG ADDICTED babies. Or maybe FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME. No wait, those are real problemss and difficult to deal with. We had better stick to handing out tickets for spurious BS. Show me a kid killed by second hand smoke and i will show you a thousand killed by real dangers. Speeding maybe?

This law is not about the rights of those who are already addicted to their nicotine, drugs, alcohol, -- whatever, --- its about the rights of the CHILDREN not to be FORICIBLY SUBJECTED to participate in that addiction !!!

I fully doubt a cop who's stopped a car because the woman or man driving had a fag hanging out of his or her mouth, and kids in the back, would have to ask if the three, and five year old sitting back there (with no say in the situation whatsoever), are 16 years old or over, and I suspect that if the kids in the back looked like they were sixteen or older, the car wouldn't have been stopped in the first place unless there was another reason for doing so.

I personally do not smoke now, but was a two-pack a day addict thirty years ago, (until I realized what a totally stupid thing I was doing to my health and well-being and quit forever) -- but my Dad always had a cigarette in his mouth, smoked in the house and car around me as a young child, and probably lead to me becoming a smoker as a teenager, because it was universally accepted then, and much of the addiction's dark side had still been suppressed by those that stood to get rich from the habit, namely the tobacco industry.

Yeah, yeah, -- my Dad tried to tell me not to smoke, but it fell on numb teenage ears, and I did it anyway, because (I thought) it looked "grown up" to have a cancer stick hanging out the side of your mouth, and now I could hang out with the "tough guys" standing out in the school parking lot, freezing their "butts" off and looking like idiots to those not yet hooked. Of course, once hooked, the "cool" factor became unimportant, and the nicotine need became the all encompasing reason for my endless treks to the tobacco store for my next "fix" for the next fifteen or so years.

I relate this little story to let you know where I'm coming from on this subject, and basically its to say I've "bin there and done that" -- and I'm sure as hell not proud of that fact !! As far as I know, my early habit did not give me lung cancer, because my doctor warned me early enough to kick the habit before it did, but every day or so now, I run up to the hospital to visit my friend who is an ex chain smoker like I was, and is soon to die of lung cancer!! If all you butt puffers want to see what your habit can do to you some day, I suggest you go up to the hospital and visit a lung cancer patient. Believe me -- it ain't pretty, and I wouldn't wish that on anybody !

Anyway caranmacil, we ARE talking about DRUG ADDICTION --- and we are talking about the health hazrds that are associated with DRUG ADDICTION, and we ARE ALSO TALKING ABOUT the rights of those who are subjected to all the ill effects of those addictions, with no chance of standing up for their own rights with regards to the matter, unless you, and I, step in and do it for them !!

Wake up to the real problem we are addressing here, instead of like so many others, typically passing it off to some "other" societal parasite we will also have to deal with every day of our lives as well.

If you and I don't, or won't try to help resolve the problem, then we become part of that problem, and fully deserve the consequences bestowed upon us because of it.

It is a common sense issue whether or not to smoke in an enclosed area when little kids are with you, the police have so many other things that they should be doing. My Dad always smoked in the car with us kids in the back seat, but he always had the vent window open to suck the smoke out. The cops do not have enough resources to deal with petty crimes, and I would be mad as hell if they wasted their time and mine to give me a lecture and maybe a fine over a petty thing like cigarette smoking. The safety nazis and their ilk are so busy trying to save the planet that they have lost their sack of common sense marbles.
metalman.

Anyone smoking in a car with little children strapped in the back seat, is clearly displaying not only that they have a total lack of common sense, (a rapidly becoming scarce commodity these days), but also a total disregard for for anyone or anything but their own self-gratification as well. This, to me, tells a lot about a person right off, and sometimes leads me to wondering what else they probably do that negatively affects their children (and maybe mine), as well.

I've had many, many nicotine addicts in my vehicles over the years who won't even light up with just ME in the car, out of common sense and just plain courtesy, or simple respect. I don't really care about their addiction, or whether that addiction is going to kill them, or where they choose to satisfy that addiction, as long as they don't try to use my home or car, or my family's homes and cars, at least while there are little kids trapped in there, to "shoot up" with their regular dose of whatever substance they are hooked on.

The difference is that at least I have the right, and the ability, to tell them to "butt out, or get out", unlike those little kids in the back seat, who have no choice but to sit there and breathe whatever that jerk is putting in the air at the time.

These are the ones most vulnerable to this kind of abuse, and the ones this law is attempting to protect. I applaud its implementation, and support it fully. Its about time someone said "enough already" !!

Something tells me the people on here who are not ok with this are likely people who smoke with an infant in the car. I say fine the hell out them. The baby doesn't have a vote. I for one would have no problem with calling th police if I saw that. I dont care what they have on the go.

My thoughts EXACTLY, vocer !!