Can you answer this?

Question

What if I believe that cars are just as bad as cigarettes? And can prove it?
Do I not have the same rights as a non smoker?
Don't I have the same freedom of liberty?
Can I say don't drive around me like a person says don't smoke?
I am part of society, and as society, we need to make a change.

If someone can get a ticket, or be denied the right to smoke in a place to work, or bar or restauraunt because it violates anothers right to clean air, then it makes sense to me that these people should also be denied the right to drive cars, or motorcycles, or run a lawnmower, because they are doing the same thing to me, as they are complaining about on others.

Answer 1

You might have standing for this argument if you are someone who's life is not enhanced in any way by mechanized travel - like the Luddites or Amish. However, since you are using a computer, I'm guessing that's not the case. It's not just about driving cars. Pollution causing mechanized transportation facilitates all modern life - individual travel, shipping, etc.

Non smokers do not smoke and do not want to smoke, do not derive any benefit from others smoking, and they do not want to be second-hand smokers either. Even if you don't own a car, if you use modern technology you are a willing second hand beneficiary of cars.

Answer 2

How about this: electric car:
battery-powered motor vehicle, originating in the late 1880s and used for private passenger, truck, and bus transportation.

Through the early period of the automotive industry until about 1920, electric automobiles were competitive with petroleum-fueled cars particularly as luxury cars for urban use and as trucks for deliveries at closely related points, for which the relatively low speed and limited range, until battery recharge, were not detrimental. Electrics, many of which were steered with a tiller rather than a wheel, were especially popular for their quietness and low maintenance costs. Ironically, the death knell of the electric car was first tolled by the Kettering electrical self-starter, first used in 1912 Cadillacs and then increasingly in other gasoline-engine cars. Mass production, led by Henry Ford, also reduced the cost of the nonelectrics. Electric trucks and buses survived into the 1920s, later than passenger cars, especially in Europe.

Electric automobile prototypes reappeared in the 1960s when major U.S. manufacturers, faced with ultimate exhaustion of petroleum-based fuels and with immediate rising fuel costs from the domination of Arab petroleum producers, once again began to develop electrics. Both speed and range were increased, and newly developed fuel cells offered an alternative to batteries; but by the mid-1980s electric automobiles had not become a part of the automotive industry's output. Most industrial in-plant carrying and lifting vehicles, however, were electrically powered.

Answer 3

You can't die from second-hand exhaust fumes. Driving is a privilege, not a right. Not everyone can drive and everyone can smoke.

I assume you don't use a car, bus, tractor, moped, motorcycle, electricity, and only eat organically locally grown vegetables and no meat? If not, shut up.

Fact that you're using a computer proves that you're full of crap. It uses electricity and causes waste thus damaging the environment and in the theory of your question, damages you.

Answer 4

There are several problems with your analogy but the biggest is that, compared to automobiles, smoking offers little benefit to society relative to its harm. Have you ever tried driving a cigarette to work?

And no one is saying that you can't smoke, they are just limiting the places where you can do so. Much like automobiles are limited to driving on roads.

Answer 5

theoretically you are right, but it doesn't work in reality. if the whole world had to stop driving cars, motorcycles, etc it would be chaos. if people aren't able to smoke inside, that is not the end of the world. they can find other places to smoke. there is no where else to drive except for outside.

Answer 6

Here in South Carolina we still smoke in bars and most restaurants. I agree with you, but everybody drives. Only half the population smokes. So we are out numbered.

Answer 7

Someone driving a car badly is just an everyday problem that people have to deal with, and they cant pass the rick of giving you cancer.

Answer 8

It is a silly proposition and one that could never work. The US is by culture and practicality dependent on automobiles.

Smoking is inherently bad for your health. Driving is not when done safely even though accidents happen.

Answer 9

driving a car, riding in a car, or for that matter, walking does not cause cancer. smoking causes cancer. that is a fact. it has nothing to do with what you or I believe. smoking causes cancer. stop smoking and live longer. you only get one life, why not try to make it a long and happy one.

Answer 10

There can be an equally compelling argument on the flip side of your car driving scenerio. ie: Car driving can be very safe if people do it correctly.

Can you offer a flip side to how smoking can be done safely?