Dr. Healy, who acknowledges the potential dangers of secondhand smoke for children, argues that banning smoking in cars in not justified for three main reasons:
- It goes too far in "policing behavior and trouncing privacy." It opens the door to a slippery slope that includes other intervention such as regulating what foods parents can serve their kids and how much sun they can allow them to get.
- It singles out a group which is disproportionately poorer and female (since moms are more likely to be ferrying their kids around places).
- It uses a punitive approach, which may not only be less effective than education, but may be much worse. Parents may just decide to smoke in the safe confines of their own home, where exposure of their kids to secondhand smoke is much more serious, as it takes place for many hours (rather than just for minutes in a car).