Cig Heil

I was recently stopped at a red light behind a  VW camper with the de rigueur “save the planet” bumper stickers pointing fingers at corporate culprits like logging companies who are destroying our planet, when a lit cigarette butt comes flying out of the driver’s window and onto the street. Unfortunately, it is still extremely common to see these kind of sloppy “cig heil” salutes given by cigarette-smoking drivers and passengers on all of our streets and highways.

In the last five to 10 years, cigarette smokers have outdone it in not endearing themselves to the non-smoking public with this epidemic of lit cigarette and cigar butts slovenly being thrown out of their vehicles.  This behavior is an all-gender, all-income and all-occupation public nuisance, but it is most galling when it comes from smokers who identify themselves as environmentalists—people whom, I’m sure, would like to think of themselves as progressive (whatever that word really means, as one’s person’s progressive is another person’s regressive).

Sadly, this behavior is not limited to the hypocritical so-called environmentalists; this epidemic is spreading to all groups. It is not unusual see two well-dressed and well-coiffed young women in a Mercedes (or other high-end car) both hanging their hands out their windows, getting ready to flick away their butts. You see men and women, young and old, in every kind of vehicle—including, apparently, lots of families, judging by the baby-on-board signs and child car seats.  Some of the smokers try to be sly about it by holding their hands against the side of the car and slowly releasing the butts to avoid attention, while others just give the butts a straight up-and-out flick. The one thing they have in common is that they are all slobs. 

As a former cigarette smoker, I, like so many other people, am sensitive to the criticism that people like me are sometimes considered holier-than-thou when it comes to smoking-related issues; even in my earlier heavily-smoking days, however, it would never have occurred to me to throw my cigarette butts—lit or otherwise—out my car window.

Undoubtedly, one of the initial motivators for this kind of littering is the changing from almost all-new car purchasing habits to a huge number of vehicles being leased. Virtually every lease I have ever heard of includes no-smoking clauses, leading to smoking drivers hanging their arms out the windows so as not to stink up their leased vehicles. Some people are also probably cheating on agreements with spouses, parents and employers, throwing their butts away to hide the evidence. And many new cars no longer come with ashtrays, so instead of buying ashtrays for their cars or using old tins for free, the decision amongst many smokers is to simply flick their trash into the streets.

I don’t mean to comment on the morality of some of these smokers; I am merely commenting on the fact that they are treating our roads, parking lots and sidewalks as their own personal ashtrays. This, along with cell phones, is also probably a reason that so many drivers don’t bother to signal their turns or merges, because obviously the hand they would use to make the signal is hanging out the window.

Of course the annoying arrogance and sloppiness of smokers isn’t the only factor here, since the grass and forest fires caused by thrown live butts cost millions of dollars per year. Other, more positive and environmentally sensitive jurisdictions have brought in measures to curb this behavior. Consider the following examples:

• San Diego:  The San Diego Surfrider chapter, along with “I Love A Clean San Diego” and the American Heart Association,  are working with the Californian Highway Patrol and San Diego fire department  to crack down on smokers who throw their butts out the car window while driving. People who witness individuals throwing butts out their windows are asked to dial 1-800-nosmoke and read in the license plate. In a one-year period, the highway patrol issued 456 tickets for throwing a lighted substance onto a highway.

• Oregon has posted highway signs warning of stiff fines for throwing lit combustibles out of vehicles and inviting the public to report those that do.

• Officials in London, England, estimate that 40 percent of the trash picked up from city streets is discarded cigarette butts. A new anti-littering campaign includes fines of up to $130 for people who throw their butts on the ground and a group called Keep Britain Tidy is handing out 250,000 free pouches to smokers so they can store their butts.

But let’s get back to the  couple  in the Volkswagen van. People who consider themselves environmentalists need to take a good look at themselves. Is smoking and leaving their cigarette butts on roads, beaches, parks and possibly starting fires compatible with considering themselves “real” environmentalist? To paraphrase Al Gore, smokers and their litter create an inconvenient truth for those who consider themselves environmentalists. M

Ken Wand is a local writer who, despite having a considerable smoking past himself, wishes smokers would show a little more class and stop showing the rest of us their big butts.