Cabbies get incentive to give up smoking (From Basildon Recorder)

Cabbies get incentive to give up smoking

10:00am Friday 4th September 2009

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TAXI drivers who light up in their cabs will be the focus of a major new health campaign to drive down the number of people smoking.

Thurrock has one of the highest rates of smoking in the entire country and is to get a £100,000 Government grant to get more people to stub out the killer habit.

Cab drivers in particular are to be enticed to quit, as figures show more than half of the borough’s 400 taxi drivers are regular puffers.

Thurrock Council has already handed out 11 fixed-penalty notices to taxi drivers, and even prosecuted one cabbie through the courts for smoking in his car.

The smoking ban, introduced in July 2007, made it illegal for taxi drivers to smoke in their cabs.

Under the scheme, cabbies will be offered a chance to attend sessions to help them quit as an alternative to a fine. They will also be given money towards the prescription costs for nicotine replacement therapies.

The funding boost was welcomed at a meeting of Thurrock Council’s health and wellbeing overview committee.

But not all members were pleased with the majority of the money being directed towards taxi drivers who smoke.

Conservative councillor and former mayor John Everett said: “This is £100k of taxpayers’ money. We should be a damn sight more stringent with these taxi drivers.

“We should say quit within a month or lose your licence.”

Mr Everett also called for Thurrock Council to lobby the Government to change the legislation to allow authorities to refuse a taxi licence to anyone who smokes.

Labour leader John Kent was more supportive.

He said: “The impact of smoking on people’s lives and the NHS is undeniable. This Government is working hard to give everyone who wants to, every chance of giving up smoking”.

The money will also be spent on prosecuting shopkeepers who sell cigarettes to under 18s, offering advice to pregnant women who smoke and trying to stop tobacco being sold on the black market.

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