> The amount of crap you get from momentarily standing near a smoker nearby outside is orders of magnitude less than you get from automobile exhaust walking around a typical city.

That is a big claim. In view of the association with passive smoke and SIDS you will need some citations. It should not be hard to find them. Huge efforts have gone into researching causes of SIDS and there should be a good correlation between city vs countryside dwellers if your hypothesis is correct.

> When someone is idling their car or truck do you go knock on their window and make a big scene about how they are poisoning your child?

When my child was new born I would have moved away from them whilst saying loudly how disgusting they are - exactly the same as I did for smokers.

If someone is running their engine for no reason I would probably ask them to turn it off.

The complaints of the people you’re responding to are not merely health related, but also aesthetic. Cigarette smoke smells bad to most people. Smoking where other people will smell it is like farting in an elevator: highly inconsiderate.

From a purely aesthetic perspective, someone waving their arms, holding their nose, and talking loudly about how disgusting smokers are as they walk past a cigarette smoker is far more unpleasant than the original act. Theatrical public shaming is one of the ugliest things in society.

Given the strong association with SIDS and cigarette smoke the desire of parents to get their newborn babies away from the poison is not theatrical. It is practical.

I don’t know what to tell you, but there’s a fundamental difference between being the transgressor and responding to a transgression.

And I say this, FWIW, as a on and off smoker.

FWIW, I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. (But did grow up, as the child of anthropologist parents, frequently sitting near wood cook fires in small smoke-filled huts, which is at least 1000x worse than any second-hand cigarette smoke you could possibly get outside.)

There is a fundamental difference between someone minding their own business on a public street, not harming anyone else, and someone else putting on a show to shame them based on gross mis-assessment of risk.

I’m not sure what to say here. You have reiterated that there is no health issue, but my point is that whether or not a given behavior presents a physical harm to others is not the sole standard by which public behavior is governed.