This morning I had the pleasure of being nearly killed by a driver swerving onto my side of the road as I rounded a corner.

There was no ice on the road, no obstruction on his side of the road and he wasn’t using a mobile or eating his breakfast. Instead he was holding in his hand a tiny stick that was on fire and dropping ash onto his highly flammable car seats.

As he looked up and swerved back across to his side of the road I saw him trying to pick something off his clothes, before winding down the window and chucking out his cigarette.

It seems ludicrous that people are being fined for eating an apple while driving, yet it is still legal for people to smoke and drive.

I don’t smoke so maybe I’m missing a trick here, but I’d think that holding a burning object while trying to steer, change gear and read the road must be at least distracting and, more likely, highly dangerous.

When the smoking ban comes into force in July this year, it may also apply to company cars if someone else later in the same day is using the vehicle, because the car could count as an enclosed public space.

As a non-smoker I’m in favour of the smoking ban in restaurants and places where people smoking affects others, but people have enough information to choose whether they want to smoke at home or not.

If people choose to smoke in their stationary cars then that’s their prerogative, but some people who are dead against using mobiles have no problem with lighting up while driving, even though it is just as dangerous.

Eating, smoking, map reading, applying make-up and changing radio stations are not currently illegal activities but you can be charged with dangerous driving. At present over 500 people have signed a petition at petitions.pm.gov.uk/Smoke-driving to make lighting up a cigarette while driving illegal and on par with using a mobile. It could be a small minority like myself who feel that it’s an accident waiting to happen, but there’s no smoke without fire.