Stop the Checkpoints

If you were me, you would already be well aware that there's nothing quite as aggravating as a DWI checkpoint. But since you're not, a friend of the FunkyPundit, Sarah Longwell, breaks it down for you in the pages today's New York Sun:

Federal funding policy requires roadblocks to be "highly publicized." So authorities regularly publish roadblock times and locations in advance, allowing veteran drunk drivers simply to drive around them. The word also gets passed around via the word-of-mouth and cell phone networks, which are similar to truck drivers who tell their friends about speed traps.

Testimony from an official at Pennsylvania's Department of Transportation, Louis Rader, demonstrated that roving patrols, where cops swarm the roads looking for erratic drivers, are a superior tactic for catching drunk drivers. Mr. Rader testified that only 0.7% of all drivers stopped at DUI checkpoints are charged, while 7.7% of suspicion-based stops made by roving patrols yield charges. That's 10 times more arrests per car stopped.

In the war against drunk driving, setting up roadblocks is like expecting the enemy to walk into your camp and surrender. It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.

To which a pundit of the funkiest variety could only add: Word.

TREND WATCH: Proposed NY Bans

List is current as of 5:58 PM, Friday, November 16th ...

New York City:

2007:

1. Feeding pigeons
2. City Council ads with holiday messages that are taxpayer finance
3. City Councilmembers using public funds for personal ads
   
4. Styrofoam containers in food services
   
5. Various contributions to city politicians
6. Etching acid
7. High rises in the Upper West Side
   
8. 'Stealing' recyclables
   
9. Peeping toms
10. Videotaping in public without a permit
    
11. Smoking in cars with minors
    
12. The word "bitch"
13. The word "ho"
14. Free formula samples for new mothers at city hospitals
15. Teenage possession of spray paint
    
16. Businesses from leaving their windows or doors open while air conditioners are on inside
    
17. Dogs from being tied up three-plus hours
    
18. Talking/listening/playing while walking crosswalks
19. Skinny models
20. The "N-word"
21. Electric-assist pedicabs
22. Public pension investments in companies with business in Sudan

2006:

1. pit bulls
2. trans-fats
3. aluminum baseball bats
4. the purchase of tobacco by 18- to 20-year-olds
5. foie gras
6. pedicabs in parks
7. new fast-food restaurants (but only in poor neighborhoods)
8. lobbyists from the floor of council chambers
9. lobbying city agencies after working at the same agency
10. vehicles in Central and Prospect parks
11. cell phones in upscale restaurants
12. the sale of pork products made in a processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., because of a unionization dispute
13. mail-order pharmaceutical plans
14. candy-flavored cigarettes
15. gas-station operators adjusting prices more than once daily
16. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
17. Wal-Mart
18. the process that makes steaks pink
19. subway ads poking fun at outer boroughs

2004:

1. Loud car alarms
2. Vendors from Ground Zero
   

2003:

1. Cell phones during public performances

2002:

1. Toy guns
2. Soft drinks and snacks in city public schools
   

New York:

2007:

1. Texting while driving
   
2. Using I-pods/cell phones while crossing the street
3. Plastic bags
4. Nooses
   
5. Spectating dog fights
   
6. Smoking in cars with minors
   
7. Plastic water bottles
8. Styrofoam used in food services
9. Thin models

The Nanny Inquisition

The crusade continues, The New York Times reports:

Moonshine is the kind of cozy, lived-in Brooklyn bar that allowed customers to bring dogs inside and meat for the grill outside, both of which, it would come to learn, are against New York City health department regulations. But no one foresaw one violation uncovered during a recent surprise inspection of the Red Hook tavern.

It was tucked within the array of more common infractions on the inspectors’ forms for which Moonshine was cited: the grills, the “live dog” in the bar, fruit flies and “7 mice excreta” in the basement. If widely enforced, it is not an exaggeration to say that the rule would radically change the way thousands of bartenders do one small but vital part of their job every single day.

“A male worker observed having bare-hand contact with one slice of ready-to-eat lime while placing on top of beer bottle for patron in bar,” the citation, dated Oct. 9, states. Bare-hand contact? How else is a bartender supposed to get a ready-to-eat lime slice into a bottle of Corona for a patron? According to the health department, there are two solutions.

Plastic gloves or tongs.

In other words, every time a bartender in New York City puts a lime slice in that Corona with bare hands, he or she is breaking the law. ...

An informal survey of several bartenders on whether they use gloves or tongs when garnishing beer bottles was met with incredulity, ridicule and disdain. But when asked to perform this alien ritual, they did their best with the tongs, gripping the little wedges and guiding them into the bottles. Some fumbled, while others took to it like surgeons performing a transplant. None of them seemed happy with the thought of doing it every day.

The first stop was Smith & Wollensky, the revered brass-rail bar and steakhouse in Midtown where the staff wears sharp white coats. Patrick Ford, a bartender for 35 of his 53 years, was standing behind the polished bar amid gleaming bottles on a busy Tuesday night as he considered how to legally garnish a beer.

“I won’t wear gloves,” he said, his tall frame so thin it seemed his white coat was still on a hanger. “It’s not a doctor’s office. It’s a saloon.”

He fished out a Corona and looked around. “We don’t have tongs,” he said. “I’ll use a fork.”

He speared a little wedge of lime and walked past several amused regular customers, toward a waiting Corona. In his coat, holding the fruit before him, he looked like a mad scientist with a laboratory specimen. The lime addressed the lip of the beer bottle with uncertainty, but when Mr. Ford removed the fork, it stuck there. Men cheered.

“Hey, Patty,” one man bellowed. “Give me a Corona over here! Be sure to use a fork!”

While putting lime in beer borders on criminal, I believe the surgeon general recommends that anyone who would ban the practice be kept at least 100 yards away from any position of authority. It's just safer for everyone.

Around the Web

• Pat Buchanan actually writes something worth reading (even if Stephen Moore wrote much the same column only a few weeks ago).

• An anti-tobacco activist says New York City's health czar, Dr. Thomas Frieden, manipulates the science of second-hand smoke in the tradition of the infamous Tobacco Institute.

• Robert Gates continues his audition for the next Clinton Administration.

• The Center for Consumer Freedom's Rick Berman reports: "During the same time that health officials have placed increasing emphasis on obesity rates, the incidence of eating disorders has nearly tripled."

• A Johns Hopkins professor says claims of an obesity epidemic are "wildly exaggerated" and hurt children.

• A British editorial says a proposed regulation that will "warn" parents of obese "seem to assume a level of stupidity among the general public." It also has an intriguing suggestion for remedying obesity: "eat less and exercise more."

(hat tip to my pops & the Center for Consumer Freedom)

Selective Health Paternalism

From today's Best of the Web:

The Associated Press reports, "[San Francisco] health officials took steps Thursday toward opening the nation's first legal safe-injection room, where addicts could shoot up heroin, cocaine and other drugs under the supervision of nurses."

Meanwhile in Portland, Maine, the AP reports that "school officials on Thursday defended a decision to allow children as young as 11 to obtain birth-control pills at a middle-school health center."

In both San Francisco and Portland, however, smoking in bars is strictly prohibited. It's bad for your health, after all.

Meanwhile, in other health news:

-- Hillary Clinton makes fun of Americans for being fat.

-- New York City's Health Department will be visiting homes in Harlem to ensure nobody is smoking around children.

TREND WATCH: Proposed NY Bans

Note: I'm now including a category for New York state. I'm sure I've missed a bunch, so don't hesitate to bring others to my attention. I'm also including older proposed bans, too.

The latest ...

New York City:

2007:

1. City Councilmembers using public funds for personal ads
   
2. Styrofoam containers in food services
   
3. Various contributions to city politicians
4. Etching acid
5. High rises in the Upper West Side
   
6. 'Stealing' recyclables
   
7. Peeping toms
8. Videotaping in public without a permit
   
9. Smoking in cars with minors
   
10. The word "bitch"
11. The word "ho"
12. Free formula samples for new mothers at city hospitals
13. Teenage possession of spray paint
    
14. Businesses from leaving their windows or doors open while air conditioners are on inside
    
15. Dogs from being tied up three-plus hours
    
16. Talking/listening/playing while walking crosswalks
17. Skinny models
18. The "N-word"
19. Electric-assist pedicabs
20. Public pension investments in companies with business in Sudan

2006:

1. pit bulls
2. trans-fats
3. aluminum baseball bats
4. the purchase of tobacco by 18- to 20-year-olds
5. foie gras
6. pedicabs in parks
7. new fast-food restaurants (but only in poor neighborhoods)
8. lobbyists from the floor of council chambers
9. lobbying city agencies after working at the same agency
10. vehicles in Central and Prospect parks
11. cell phones in upscale restaurants
12. the sale of pork products made in a processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., because of a unionization dispute
13. mail-order pharmaceutical plans
14. candy-flavored cigarettes
15. gas-station operators adjusting prices more than once daily
16. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
17. Wal-Mart
18. the process that makes steaks pink
19. subway ads poking fun at outer boroughs

2004:

1. Loud car alarms
2. Vendors from Ground Zero
   

2003:

1. Cell phones during public performances

2002:

1. Toy guns
2. Soft drinks and snacks in city public schools
   

New York:

2007:

1. Using I-pods/cell phones while crossing the street
2. Plastic bags
3. Nooses
   
4. Spectating dog fights
   
5. Smoking in cars with minors
   
6. Plastic water bottles
7. Styrofoam used in food services
8. Thin models

NOTE: List updated again as of 12:12 PM, October 16th.

'It was time, I felt, for an Agonizing Reappraisal of the whole scene.'

My colleague Steve Couzzo took to the pages of yesterday's Sunday Post (in the brand new Post Script section) to offer the definitive account of Bloombergism -- the "independent" form of governance wholly preoccupied with busybodying even as core responsibilities (infrastructure, power, civil services) suffer -- in all its messy infamy:

The city's still in sound shape, and Bloomberg is entitled to a share of the credit. Crime is at record lows and the town is more bustling and cosmopolitan than ever.

But are we having fun yet? Not enough for the mayor, who wants us to take our medicine and be happy about it. He's left the Republicans and the Democrats behind to forge a new kind of political philosophy: Benign Billionaire Knows Best.

For him, our waistlines, our sex lives, even the behavior of our pets are fair game for improvement. Just as rezoning will produce a more sleekly contoured New York, so will tinkering with our everyday habits yield a bountiful future where no one need be fat -- or even, God forbid, stuck in traffic.

In Mayor Mike's ideal metropolis, the town would be cleansed, not only of cigarette smoke, but of a lengthy hit list of real and presumed urban evils -- among them, dogs that bark too loud and fast-food restaurants that fail to warn you of every calorie.

If you read one piece today, read this one.

Extra Credit: Anyone know where the hed for this post comes from?

Gotham's Butter Cops Run Wild

The first fines in New York City have been issued for illegal possession of margarine. The so-called grace period, where restaurants received warnings as opposed to fines for use of trans fats, expired September 30th. From Oct. 1 through Oct. 5, 20 restaurants received trans-fats citations -- most for possession.

The Post reports:

The fines ranged from $200 to $2,000, and all the restaurant owners are entitled to challenge the summonses at hearings.

Nearly all of the ticketed eateries were cited for using trans-fat-laden margarine.

Only one, Ballato on East Houston Street, which has hosted the likes of Sophia Loren, Roberto Benigni and Daniel Day-Lewis, was cited for using oils that lacked proper labels about the trans-fat content.

In other words, it's now illegal to possess unlabeled containers of oil. So much for those exotic, high-end olive oils retailed in ornate bottles -- too much work for the food cops to determine whether the law is being broken.

Owner Emilio Vitolo said he'll fight the summons because the oil in question was peanut oil -- one that doesn't contain the offending fats. He insisted that he never uses trans fats in preparing his meals.

Workers at nearly every restaurant contacted by The Post said the infractions were for stray containers of spreads or oils that hadn't been tossed out -- and they insisted their cooking is trans-fat-free.

"I didn't know [the new rules] applied to bakeries as of yet," said Rajandra Mahase, owner of Little Guyana Bake Shop in Queens.

That's also news to the Health Department -- from a recent press release: "This first phase of the regulation applies to oils, shortening and margarines used for frying and as spreads. It does not apply to baked goods or prepared foods, or to oils used to deep-fry dough or cake batter. Those products are covered by the second phase of the initiative, which takes effect on July 1, 2008."

And all this while the science behind the ban is dubious at best.

Dr. Frieden, Call Your Office

New York City may have already sicced its food cops on anyone using trans-fats, but according to a new report, that may have been premature. John Tierney reports in yesterday's New York Times:

In 1988, the surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, proclaimed ice cream to a be public-health menace right up there with cigarettes. Alluding to his office’s famous 1964 report on the perils of smoking, Dr. Koop announced that the American diet was a problem of “comparable” magnitude, chiefly because of the high-fat foods that were causing coronary heart disease and other deadly ailments.

He introduced his report with these words: “The depth of the science base underlying its findings is even more impressive than that for tobacco and health in 1964.”

That was a ludicrous statement, as Gary Taubes demonstrates in his new book meticulously debunking diet myths, “Good Calories, Bad Calories” (Knopf, 2007). The notion that fatty foods shorten your life began as a hypothesis based on dubious assumptions and data; when scientists tried to confirm it they failed repeatedly. The evidence against Häagen-Dazs was nothing like the evidence against Marlboros.

Read the whole thing. It's a fascinating take on how one myth can cascade into conventional wisdom. This seems to be exactly what's happened with fears of secondhand smoke.

Isn't This What the Soviets Did?

Nanny-state operatives make kids rat out their parents' illicit behavior.

At what point will people say enough, I wonder? Ever?

Picture of the Day

Fact of the Day: It's possible to smoke, drink AND eat trans fats, while still living a long, healthy, happy life. One-hundred-year-old Winnie Langley is case in point.

(Hat tip to Karol)

I Want To Be Anthony Bourdain

I'm not one to watch a lot of TV. The only show I'm currently watching with anything approaching regularity is Flight of the Conchords, mostly because it's the greatest new series since Married with Children.

I did, however, happen to randomly catch a show a few weeks back that seemed potentially awesome. It's called "No Reservations" and is hosted by Anthony Bourdain, a guy I've since learned wrote the book "Kitchen Confidential." Suffice it to say, it's a great show if you're comfortable nursing pangs of jealousy. Bourdain visits obscure parts of the world, eating the best/weirdest dishes his hosts have to offer, and narrates with often surprisingly intelligent social commentary. In other words, it's the ultimate way to make a living.

As a chef in New York City, Bourdain -- now a "chef-at-large" for Brasserie Les Halles -- is well-placed to provide on-the-ground coverage of the war being waged on food lovers' gastronomic liberty.

Columnist Franklin Harris explains:

For Bourdain, food is a social, even cultural experience. Snubbing the local cuisine isn’t just rude, it’s antisocial. That’s one reason Bourdain hates militant vegetarians and, as he puts it, “their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans.” If you don’t eat meat, you’re turning your back on the vast majority of the world’s cultures.

Bourdain dislikes all of the right people. His attacks on Food Network chef/talk show host Rachael Ray — he calls her a “bobblehead” — are a joy forever. He also has unloaded both barrels on actor/raw food evangelist Woody Harrelson.

But the main reason I admire Bourdain is he is a champion of freedom. He stands up to activists who want to ban foie gras, as Chicago has already done, and government busybodies who outlaw food that is commonplace in the rest of the world, like unpasteurized cheese.

Yes, my fellow Americans, unless you leave the U.S., you’ll never (legally) know what truly wonderful, stinky, delicious cheese is like. But, hey, at least you’ll still have Velveeta.

During an episode of “No Reservations” set in Paris, Bourdain observed that almost everything done in one French restaurant he visited would be illegal if done in a kitchen in New York. Yet you don’t see Parisians dropping dead of food poisoning. And they’re not as fat as we are, either.

How rotten that in order to indulge certain culinary preferences, Americans must first flee for freer locales.

Which reminds me. My dealer hasn't been returning my pages for a week now. Hope the feds didn't nab him, or that he didn't get narc'ed on by the sellouts at American Dairy.

TREND WATCH: Proposed NYC Bans

The latest ...

2007:

1. The word "bitch"
2. The word "ho"
3. Free formula samples for new mothers at city hospitals
4. Plastic water bottles (New York State)
   
5. Teenage possession of spray paint
   
6. Businesses from leaving their windows or doors open while air conditioners are on inside
   
7. Dogs from being tied up three-plus hours
   
8. Talking/listening/playing while walking crosswalks
9. Skinny models
10. The "N-word"
11. Electric-assist pedicabs
12. Public pension investments in companies with business in Sudan

2006:

1. pit bulls
2. trans-fats
3. aluminum baseball bats
4. the purchase of tobacco by 18- to 20-year-olds
5. foie gras
6. pedicabs in parks
7. new fast-food restaurants (but only in poor neighborhoods)
8. lobbyists from the floor of council chambers
9. lobbying city agencies after working at the same agency
10. vehicles in Central and Prospect parks
11. cell phones in upscale restaurants
12. the sale of pork products made in a processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., because of a unionization dispute
13. mail-order pharmaceutical plans
14. candy-flavored cigarettes
15. gas-station operators adjusting prices more than once daily
16. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
17. Wal-Mart
18. the process that makes steaks pink
19. subway ads poking fun at outer boroughs

'The Nanny-State Diaries'

Stephen Moore says liberals are the new puritans.

'Bonfires & Illuminations'

In it's annual Fourth of July tradition, The New York Sun renews its call for the repeal of New York's ban on fireworks, to which I'd add a hearty hear-hear:

The Declaration of Independence, signed 231 years ago tomorrow, shines brightly to this day as a beacon of liberty in a world still too oppressed. So why, we ask in our annual Fourth of July editorial, are New Yorkers forced to celebrate in the dark? The Founding Fathers believed that the Fourth of July should be celebrated with "bonfires and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other, from this day forward ever more." Yet at this end of the continent, we New Yorkers live in one of only five states that completely outlaw personal use of fireworks. The state has had a ban on the books in one form or another since 1965.

Although safety is often cited as a justification for such laws, personal responsibility seems to have more bearing on safety than the fireworks themselves. According to the American Pyrotechnics Association, a trade group, consumption of fireworks, measured in millions of pounds, increased 870% between 1976 and 2005. During the same period, injuries, measured in injuries per 100,000 pounds of fireworks sold, fell 90.1%, so that last year there were only 3.8 injuries reported per 100,000 pounds sold. Fireworks account for only about 0.01% of the 70 million personal injuries suffered by Americans each year. Ovens are at least four times as dangerous.

New York's ban seems even more insulting when one considers the completely unnecessary burden it puts on law enforcement. Already this year the New York Police Department has seized 29 cars carrying illegal fireworks, arrested 91 people on charges related to trafficking and possessing illegal fireworks, including six on felony charges, seized 721 cases of fireworks, and given out 61 summonses and six juvenile reports.

An NYPD spokesman, Assistant Chief Michael Collins, attributed significantly fewer arrests and seizures this year to increasing awareness of the NYPD's heightened enforcement measures. The city's enforcement efforts on fireworks read like something more worthy of a counterterrorism program. This year, the police department has worked with surrounding jurisdictions to track down traffickers and used checkpoints at the bridges and tunnels to search vehicles for fireworks as they enter the city. In addition, on Monday Police Commissioner Kelly said, "We are very openly monitoring activities in other states."

What kind of message is that sending to the youngsters of this city? George Washington would have been disgusted. We don't blame the police commissioner or the police; they don't write these laws. They are sworn to enforce them. The legislature owes them other priorities. On this Independence Day holiday, Americans are indeed in danger. But the danger comes from those terrorists who seek to destroy our liberties, not from the means ordinary New Yorkers would like to use to celebrate the country's founding, the very way for which the Founders themselves called. The signers of the Declaration of Independence took a great risk in affixing their names to that parchment. There's absolutely no reason for Albany to spoil our national holiday by preventing New Yorkers from taking their own risks to celebrate that achievement.

It Is Done

New Hampshire casts away freedom, embraces nanny-tyranny. The Boston Globe reports:

CONCORD, N.H. -- Governor John Lynch signed a law yesterday banning smoking in New Hampshire's bars and restaurants.

"The science is clear -- secondhand smoke poses a dangerous health risk, and that is why this new law is so important," Lynch said.

Actually, the science is ambiguous at best. If it's as clear as Gov. Lynch says, he should have no problem producing a list of all the New Hampshirites who've died from second-hand smoke. Still, this point is irrevelant. As the governor of a state bearing the motto "Live Free or Die" should know, if people want to work and patronize a bar that allows smoking -- even if it compromises their long-term health -- that is their choice.

But as with smoking bans everywhere, this bill concerns itself not with the interests of individuals, but politicians.

Opponents argued for education instead. They said restaurant and bar owners should decide when or whether to ban smoking, not the state.

They tried unsuccessfully to carve out an exception for "fully enclosed" smoking rooms in some businesses. The rooms would have been required to have separate ventilation systems, and employees would have been able to choose whether to enter them.

But ban supporters said allowing smoking rooms would make it difficult for workers to say no to their employers. They said the rooms would be bad for smokers and their children and for anyone seated near their doors.

Opponents could have argued for allowing smoking only so long as it is done within giant plastic bubbles. Ban proponents would have responded that children exposed to the sight of people smoking in giant plastic bubbles would think it's cool, and that we need to think first and foremost about The Children.

Politicians pushing bans in the name of public health care only about the self-satisfaction received from imposing their life choices on all those they control. Perhaps it's time for New Hampshirites to die, since they're certainly not living free. Or, at least, change their license plates.

Time To Change the License Plates

New Hampshire is throwing tradition to the wind. The Boston Globe reports the state House voted 224-117 to pass a smoking ban, which Governor John Lynch said he plans to sign. The bill has already passed the Senate, where a similar bill was blocked last year. The difference? More Democrats came to power in the last election.

Ninety days after Lynch signs the bill, Granite State residents will be forbidden from smoking in bars and restaurants.

This is a sad day for liberty. If we've lost New Hampshire, where else can liberty-minded people go to settle and pursue happiness without being told how to pursue happiness? Even that promiscuous den of sin Las Vegas has passed a smoking ban.

Perhaps it's time to move to Communist China, Communist Cuba, Stalinist North Korea, repressive Singapore, or Iran, all countries that still afford their people the right to smoke as they please in public places.

(H/t: Karol)

'Live Free or Die'

Lives another day. The Union Leader reports:

Concord – The mandatory seatbelt bill hit a bump in the road when the Senate Transportation and Interstate Committee voted to recommend the bill be killed.

The committee voted 3-2 on the recommendation and the full Senate is scheduled to vote on the bill May 31. ...

The bill, HB 802, passed the House last month by 13 votes. New Hampshire is the last state in the country without a mandatory seatbelt law, although restraints are required for children and teenagers. ...

[Republican Sen. Bob] Clegg said after the committee vote, "I don't think we should ever fear punishment as a reason to do anything. Government shouldn't be something everybody is afraid of. If seatbelts are a good idea, then we ought to educate people so they'll use them.

He said he does not use a seat belt when he drives his truck, and is not convinced that seatbelts provide a fail-safe remedy to highway deaths.

"My son once slid sideways on the ice and ended up with a branch through the door of his car. If he'd been wearing a seatbelt, it would've skewered him. Instead, the branch pushed him to the other side of the car," Clegg said. "So no, I choose not to buckle, and I think it's baloney that the government would tell me that I have to, or else."

UPDATE: James Taranto relays another story where wearing a seatbelt would have ended a driver's life. Is it not clear drivers ought to be able to decide for themselves whether wearing a seatbelt is in their own best interests?

UPDATE II: New Hampshire becomes the 13th state to reject Congress's Real ID program mandating updated state drivers licenses.

Hello, I'm Tom Elliott, and I Smoke While Driving

I have a confession. Sometimes, when I'm all alone, when I'm relaxing in the privacy of my car, when I'm at one with myself and the open road, I smoke a cigarette. I enjoy it. I find it helps train the mind. When it's been a long trip and I'm starting to fade, nicotine reliably refocuses to the task at hand. Cigarettes, in my mind, help make the trip safer. Not only by boosting energy, but by bringing a sense of pleasure to driving. While others react frantically to an onset of traffic, cutting others off in road-rage inspired mania, I'll reach for a Camel Light, turn up the music, and relax.

So lucky for me, then, that this seemingly personal recreation is now being targeted by the health fanatics of the world. The Guardian reports on an effort to ban Smoking While Driving in Britain:

Britain's senior road safety campaigners are calling for a ban on smoking while driving, in an attempt to cut the number of crashes.

The Department of Health said last night that it would seriously consider a ban, which is also being looked at in Germany, Australia and America. The move was backed by anti-smoking campaigners but drew criticism from others as an attack on personal freedom. From 1 July, England will join the rest of the UK by introducing a ban on smoking in enclosed public places and at work.

How is Smoking While Driving dangerous?

The association claims that drivers are in danger when they take their hands off the wheel to find, light and smoke cigarettes, and are particularly at risk if a lit cigarette or ash falls in the car or is blown back through the window. The organisation, which represents 180 of Britain's 200 local roads authorities, fears that once people who drive are stopped from lighting up in other places from 1 July, they will smoke more while in their own cars.

The Guardian goes on to helpfully note that "Last year there were 3,201 deaths on Britain's roads." How many of these deaths were caused by Smoking While Driving is unclear. I'd guess somewhere near zero. Sure, smoking can be distracting -- though I somehow doubt I'm the only one who's able to retrieve a cigarette, use the car lighter, push the window-down button, all without taking my eyes off the road. The reality is that Smoking While Driving can be perfectly safe.

A spokesman for the association, Simon Ettinghausen, said: "In this country, we're libertarians, we like to give people freedoms, but if you are distracted unfortunately your freedom to do these things can affect other people's lives."

We like to give people freedoms. Ettinghausen's high opinion of himself notwithstanding, public officials don't "give people freedoms." People are born free. It is only upon first confronting government, with its monopoly hold on coercive power, that an individual's naturally-endowed liberty is curtailed.

Universally limiting liberty should only be done under the most dire of circumstances. The apparently empirically baseless notion that banning Smoking While Driving enhances safety is anything but.

(H/t: Karol)

New York Ban Update

Statewide:

In today's Daily News, Benjamin Miller, a fellow at Columbia University's Earth Engineering Center and author of "Fat of the Land: Garbage in New York, the Last Two Hundred Years," brings attention to another misguided proposed ban:

New York's Legislature is considering a ban on plastic shopping bags. The move, following the lead of San Francisco - which passed a citywide ban last month - would force supermarkets throughout the state to provide bags made of paper, degradable plastic or fabric, as opposed to plastic bags, which are made from petroleum.

The bill's sponsor, Assemblyman William Colton (D-Brooklyn), claims this will save the state money, reduce oil consumption and help the environment.

Don't count on it.

Citywide:

Council Speaker Christine Quinn is threatening to override Mayor Bloomberg's veto of a bill banning electric-assist pedicabs. Meanwhile, the lobbyist hired by the Committee for Taxi Safety, Emily Giske, is friends with the speaker, lives in the same building as the speaker, and once said, upon Quinn's ascent to the speakership: "As a lesbian and as a Democrat, I've never been more proud of anything in my life."

Earlier:

Trend Watch: New York Bans
Trend Watch: Proposed New York Bans