No smoking in taxis, please.

Smoking kills. So, does passive smoking (that is when you don't smoke but someone else does nearby, or recently). Knowing this, Singapore's authorities moved a couple of years ago, to control smoking in public places, banning it except in designated smoking areas, at cafes, hawker centres, eateries, restaurants (and later bars and clubs). Unpopular though this move was, with smokers, I think it is a good thing.


The other day, I got into a cab that had the strongest smell I have ever encountered in public transport: smoke. The whole cab reeked of cigarettes - every inch of the place emanated old, dead cigarettes. It was horrible. Now, I knew, at once, that this could only be because the driver was a heavy smoker and smoked in his own cab - because the smell was just too thick, too all-encompassing to have come from a recent passenger's cigarette. It wasn't the smell of just one fag - it was the smell of hundreds, all laid on top of one another. It was truly dreadful.



The stench was all the more surprising in that he had clearly not been smoking recently, since there was no smoke in the air and he had not a cigarette in his hand. It is just that he had smoked so consistently and persistently in his cab, that the very substance and fabric of the cab itself had come to smell like an ashtray, filled with fuming butts.



Now, I don't want my cab to smell like a cheap nightclub. I don't want to have to absorb thousands of airborne toxins, permeating the air of the cab. I want to breathe clean air. Why should I not when cabs are simply so expensive, anyway, these days? Did I ask the driver to give me free cigarette fumes? No. Yet, he did.



Now, I didn't know when I took that cab that smoking was not allowed in cabs. If I had known this, I would have noted his license number and reported him. Clearly, the fact that smoking in cabs is banned yet his cab smelled of smoke, indicates that the legislation is not working. It needs to be enforced. Taxis should be smoke free zones. Neither drivers nor passengers should smoke in cabs. If a passenger smokes, they will leave behind fumes for the next passenger to breathe - so no-one should smoke. Perhaps it is time to stiffen the penalties: a cab driver should lose the right to drive, if his cab smells of smoke. Such a penalty might actually work, if enforced.

I understand that some drivers are smokers and that, for them, ironically, smoking is a matter of life and death and they really must get their puff every hour/minute/second. Well, there is a simple solution: they will have to stop their cab somewhere, GET OUT, then smoke. They should not smoke in an enclosed space, because then they will smell of cigarette smoke, too.


I am glad, however, that this incident made me research the law around smoking in cabs. The next time I get into a cab that smells of smoke, I will report the driver. If everyone did this, it wouldn't be long before drivers (and passengers) did, indeed, stop smoking in what is, after all, a public place: a taxi.

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