Jump to full article: The Guardian (uk), 2008-03-29
Intro: Northern Ireland's environment minister Arlene Foster confirmed yesterday that a ban on smoking while at the wheel is one of a series of measures aimed at cutting the relatively high death toll on the province's roads. According to police figures, 126 people died on the roads in Northern Ireland in 2006. Last year the Police Service of Northern Ireland said that figure had fallen to 112. . . .
Foster is understood to have been won round to banning smoking in cars and lorries after a court case connected to a fatal road crash in Northern Ireland in which two children died. In April 2006 Wayne Johnston was jailed for five years on two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one of causing grievous bodily injury.
He hit a group of children in west Belfast after he lit a cigarette which caused him to suffer a coughing fit. He killed eight year old Emma Lynch and Christopher Shaw, 11.
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