Gormless denial still exists over smoking's dangers

7:08pm Thursday 28th June 2007

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FOR one deluded moment, I thought the smokers had hired a hitman to nail me.

I was driving along London Road, High Wycombe, on Monday evening when a hand appeared from the window of the black car in front.

The hand made a backward motion in my direction and I initially wondered if I was being subjected to some road rage abuse.

But then some foul-smelling ash dropped onto the road from the cigarette the hand was holding, and all became clear.

The driver of the car was having a puff at the wheel. But in the true tradition of most smokers, he didn't want the fumes to infect the air around him, and he inflicted them on the rest of the world instead.

The motorist continued to flick ash on to the A40 for about two miles, and the stench wafted through my open windows making me want to gag. For a second, I began imagining he had been hired by smokers to make my life hell because of my views on cigarettes.

Of course, I'm sure he would deny doing anything wrong. He would insist it was his human rights to be able to smoke freely in his car and that there was no real harm in polluting the atmosphere.

But there's so much evidence that passive smoking is highly dangerous, that I'm staggered smoking anywhere is still allowed.

I am staggered that we still have to wait until next week for the ban to be enforced in enclosed public places. It's disgraceful that the Government, having decided smoking in public places is harmful, has taken so long to implement the new law.

We took my pensioner parents and my young son to a pub restaurant in Hertfordshire on Saturday night. We asked for a non-smoking table and were given one.

But the table was situated at the very point the section ended. We were just a few feet away from tables where people could still lawfully smoke.

We asked to be moved but were told the other tables were reserved.

The waitress looked at us in slight bewilderment when I said we didn't wish to be so near smoking tables, and she said there was nothing the pub could do.

We were made to feel we were the unreasonable ones, even though the Government accepts passive smoking is so lethal and has passed a law to ban it in enclosed public places.

We were unable, for various reasons, to drive to another restaurant, so had the choice of leaving and going hungry, or staying and risking being smoked out.

We took a risk and stayed.

But just as our meals arrived, a witches' coven of female smokers flooded in to the pub and sat crowded around the fag packets on a table just a stone's throw from ours.

Not surprisingly, the women didn't want to have the fumes in their own faces, so they held their cigarettes away and allowed the smoke to waft over everywhere else.

Mrs Editor's Chair insisted on opening a window, meaning we froze as we ate our fish and chips.

But, despite this, my son's nose was still streaming as a result of the smoke.

I accept this argument has already been won and, by this time next week, the smokers will have been driven out of all eating establishments.

But it amazes me that this gormless denial towards smoking's dangers still exists.

Why does it take a Government ban for people to start acting responsibly and start treating their fellow man with a bit of respect?