Here is a poll for the smokers on how they dispose of cigarettes when driving.

 

where is the Poll?

Bone

 

There is of course the other option- don't smoke in the car. I have that bad habit, but not in the car or home. (Or office, but that's not even legal here anymore).

 

Option 2 has to be one of the most low life things I see in parking lots.

 

I always use my ashtray because there have been so many fires in S. Florida due to careless drivers with cigarettes. Sunday mornings I ussually wash my truck so I empty it into the trash then or suck it out with the shop vac. I really should give up smoking but I was raised not to be a quitter.

 

I have seen some of the worst fires - wildfires - in my life while living in Southern California. It is a desert area, technically. The general scrub growth in the area is classified as "CHAPPARAL", and consists of manzanita, mesquite, tumbleweeds, etc... Very dry, like tinder. I have seen the sky in San Diego a dark orange cloud with the sun invisible behind this overcast, and ash - like snowflakes, falling from the air for days on end. The smell of smoke everywhere. Orange flames licking up on the hilltops around the valley I lived in - that seemed so small and far away, but were twenty to fifty feet high in fact. Watched fires climb over ridges, and seen the retardent bombers fly over and drop stuff in areas that were populated...

(What a simple sounding word: "POPULATED"...)

Places I had gone on a bicycle just the day before.

And out in the back country -

Stories of large kerosene and propane tanks next to houses (their source of heating and cooking) being defended as long as possible from the fires, until it was useless. They went off like bombs.

And I have met people who had everything they cared about wiped out by wild fires. Homes. Cars. Trucks. Dogs. Cats. Horses. Livestock. Family members...

In 2004, I went to the ship while ash was falling, and we had no idea what we would find back home when we pulled into San Diego again. Not the single guys, with relatives in Spring Valley. Not the family men, who had wives and kids in Poway and Rancho Bernardo. We did not know...

I once had a roomate from Georgia (no offence, Ken, and others from Georgia) who flipped a cig butt out the window while we were driving to Julian, and I read him the riot act on it, and explained why...

To "Kieth's" credit, he never did it again that I know of.

It only takes one ignition source, no matter how small, in a high fire risk area to cause what happened in California two years ago - even though there were witnesses who claimed to have seen suspiscious persons throwing flaming objects from a van.

Fires once lit in wilderness areas can be hard to reach, impossible to stop, claim lives and property, destroy natural resources, and are so easy to prevent it breaks the heart...

Just don't be CARELESS.

Unfortunately, it often seems that the people who care about such things are vastly outnumbered these days.

Think before you drop "hell" out of the window.

PS: SOAPBOX for sale, cheap. Enquire within...

PPS: I hope these visions I have shown you scare the living daylights out of you, so that you WILL remember and think about it. I do.
There is nothing quite as frightening (or thought provoking) as realising you are not safe after all.

 

I don't smoke (except the occasional cigar...) but I HAVE spent plenty of hours picking up cigarette butts in parking lots.
Anyone who chooses option two or three, I politely request you select a small parking lot somewhere, put on a rubber glove, and pick up all the cigarette butts that have landed there. Then think about the kid who gets paid $8 per hour to do that, every day. (And to those of you who are thinking it would be easier to sweep them up, I'm willing to bet you've never swept a parking lot by hand.)

(Yes, I know that the poll is about driving, which would imply going down the street, but the idea is the same.)

 

No comment.

 

I have never understood why any smoker would consider the world to be his/her ashtray.
Dono

 

Well put, Dono.

I smoke, therefore I dispose of cigarette butts.

I also dispose of garbage and defecate...

I just do not do so in the middle of the road



(YEAH! Picture it... Interstate 15 on a busy day!)

-Now remember, NO profanity here...

 

i always use to throw mine out the window, but i won the battle against them damn things and quit. besides my ashtrays always been full of change.

 

I think thats nasty to throw them out on the road. They just pile up somewhere and make the roads look bad. I don't smoke cigarettes, but I do enjoy smoking cigars occasionally. Whenever I am done with one, I make sure to put it in an ashtray, or make sure it is completely out and throw it in the trash. Nobody else should have to deal with my mess.

 

Yeah, I've had to clean up a parking lot or two. I throw my chew out the window, but that is a little different than a cigarette. I also try to refrain from dumping spitters anywhere but trash cans or in the gravel or dirt at home.

 

Unless I have an empty bottle/can in the truck, they go out the window. I try my hardest not to smoke in the truck, but there are times I have to. Maybe....once or twice a day. If Im within sight of a trash can (not driving) then I will knock off the cherry and throw it in the trash.

 

I drove through the interior of the Bahamas they dont have anyone to pick up the litter... garbage piled up 4feet in on each side of the road, the whole trip. It was messed up.


I dont smoke, but I used to have to pick up butts along a bike trail for the conservation district. it was a crappy crappy task, help me make up my mind about smoke taxes and such....