Please Use Your Ashtray!

Please Use Your Ashtray!

By Fred Cable, Jr.

I write this letter in hope that people will be enlightened to the fact that throwing lit cigarette butts out the window is very dangerous. Last summer, my family and I went to Maine on vacation. While there, we heard on the radio that a woman had died in a fire that was started by someone carelessly discarding a lit cigarette outside the cottage where she was vacationing.

Every morning on my way to work I see at least three lit cigarette butts that have been thrown from vehicles, in careless disregard to other people’s property or welfare. I have seen lit butts thrown in front yards, as well as along the edge of fields and forests, no matter how dry the conditions are. It makes me wonder how many fires have been started this way.

Please don’t throw lit cigarette butts out the window. How hard is it to empty an ashtray?