Travelling should be as easy as getting from A to B, but let’s face it, it’s rarely this straight-forward. More often than not to get from A to B you have to change at C, take a replacement bus service from D to E, before missing your connection at F and arriving at B, only to find your suitcase is actually in G. It is, it’s safe to say, a stressful time.
For smokers, handling the stress and disruption of modern travel is felt even more due to the blanket smoking bans in force on the UK transport network. In the past twenty-five years opportunities to smoke on the move have been steadily phased out, so from being able to smoke freely on buses, trains, and planes whilst we were all sporting mullets and listening to Wham, smokers now face a long trek to beyond the station or terminal doors if they are to take a relaxing draw.
City commuters have been unable to smoke since the late 1980s, with the Underground network banning smoking following the Kings Cross fire of 1987. Across mainline rail and UK bus services, smoking was phased out across the 1990s and early 2000s, and since the smoking ban came into effect in 2007, rail and bus stations, interchanges and airport terminals have also become smoke-free. It all means for stressful travelling for the smoker; that is unless they make the switch to an electronic cigarette.
While traditional smoking products may be banned on the move, the electronic cigarette is permitted on almost all forms of transport and travel. Because the electronic cigarette is free from tar and tobacco and emits only a nicotine vapour it is not covered by the current smoking ban regulations, and so can be enjoyed on trains, buses and planes across the UK.
However, users should still be careful, as the electronic cigarette can still cause problems of a different kind. Just last summer a significant terror alert was sparked on the M6 north of Birmingham after passengers on a Megabus coach saw what they thought was smoke coming from a man’s bag. The -smoke’ turned out to be the vapour from an electronic cigarette, but this was only discovered once the motorway had been shut down and four dozen police and armed response vehicles had been despatched to the scene.
The skies though do appear to be off limits for now though sadly. Some airlines are yet to have a firm stance on electronic cigarettes, but the majority of mainstream air carriers have bans in place on the use of electronic cigarettes whilst onboard. However, you do always have the benefit of being able to enjoy your electronic cigarette right up until departure, or on the moment of arrival in the terminal, rather than having to lurk outside amongst the taxi queue like traditional cigarette users.
And that’s not the only plus point of switching to an electronic cigarette either, because as well as being free from toxins, they are also much cheaper than traditional cigarettes. So with the money you save from ditching smoking old-school cigarettes outside in the rain, you could be sitting back in first class enjoying your electronic cigarette on the move instead.