There is a reason why smoking is prohibited in closed spaces. Different restaurants, bars and malls have separate smoking areas or open spaces where one can smoke. The reason is simple, inhaling the smoke or second-hand smoke is harmful to the health of others, even though they aren’t smoking themselves.
However, the smoke is not just harmful to humans and the environment, it can also have negative effects on objects around us. That includes your car in case you have a habit of smoking while driving. Today, we will discuss how smoking is bad for your car and why a true car lover shouldn’t indulge in this practice.
How Smoking is Bad for Cars?
According to research, smoking in the car’s closed environment pollutes the interior with nicotine and other smoke pollutants. Such serious nicotine pollution makes up for third-hand exposure.
Even if you roll down the windows thinking it will ventilate your car, the negative effects still remain. The harmful pollutants get consumed by the car seats, other surfaces, car floors and the roofs even with ventilation.
Moreover, these harmful elements then get on the skin of the passengers. Imagine touching a smoked in upholstery and then rubbing your hands over your eyes or skin. In addition to this, the total smoke pollutants keep lingering inside the car’s interior for days, weeks or even months – and no amount of cleaning can get your vehicle back to its clean, non-polluted phase.
Besides, smoking in the car affects the driver’s level of concentration, it can slow down their reflexes and this can have a negative effect on the person’s skills. Not to mention, one hand is constantly engaged and it will be difficult to instantly manoeuvre the car in case of an emergency. Furthermore, according to the driving rules in the UAE, distracted driving caused by eating or drinking, smoking or talking to the phone while driving can lead to four black points.
Another factor to prove smoking is bad for cars is that when someone else sits in a car where someone smoked earlier they can feel it when they breathe. The nicotine alongside other smoke pollutants covers up the interior including the dashboard and the upholstery release in the air. People allergic to smoke or asthmatic people can get a bad cough just by sitting in a vehicle that has been smoked in.
Factors That Harm your Car When you Smoke Inside
- Smokers roll down the windows more than non-smokers for ventilation. They sometimes keep their hand holding the cigarette outside of the window but the smoke still enters the vehicle and sometimes bits of ashes also fall inside the car.
- Cleaning a car even thoroughly has little to no effect on the amount of total smoke pollution inside. To put it simply, the smoke gets absorbed in the car surfaces and stays there no matter how you clean it later.
- The odour left on the car surfaces is next to impossible to remove. Imagine how difficult it is to get the stench out of a T-shirt let alone car surfaces.
- Another reason why smoking is bad for cars is that the smoke secreted from a cigarette can discolour the car’s fabric.
- If the car driver is a chain smoker, there are a lot of chances that the car’s interior will get seriously damaged.
- Smokers generally stalk all the cigarette buds and ashes in the car ashtray and no amount of cleaning it later can get rid of the stench that’s left inside.
- All these things damage your car’s interior to a great extent, it becomes dangerous for other passengers, especially children to sit in such cars.
- Be very careful about smoking in the car if someone in the family is asthmatic.
- Never leave a cigarrete lighter inside your car as it comes under things you should never leave in a car, especially during the hot temperatures.
- Smoking in the car plays a negative role in preserving your car’s value for resale purposes.
FAQs
Is There any Fine for Smoking a Cigarette in a Car?
Please note that smoking in the car is not illegal. However, traffic officials warned people to not smoke in cars when driving. Furthermore, RTA officials have suggested removing ashtrays from cars in an attempt to make drivers quit smoking when they are on the wheel.
As for fines, things that distract drivers are usually fined. For instance, smoking Sheesha in the car leads to a fine of AED 800 and four black points.
The ideal thing would be to quit smoking inside a vehicle altogether. Nevertheless, if you can’t you should buy another car for the family and make a conscious effort to never smoke in that vehicle. Take a look at these used cars for sale in the UAE.
Stay tuned to UAE’s top auto blog for more on car problems and solutions.
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