[Candice]

Does this piss anyone off when you are riding behind and then they throw their cigarette out the window? They know I’m there. Where do they think it’s going to go exactly? Actually I don’t think one has ever hit me but it’s still kind of rude I think. Like they are throwing their garbage at me.

[wbsprudels]

I agree with you 100%. It’s always irked me–even before riding a motorcycle. Now when I see it in front of me when I am on my bike, I’d like to catch it and throw it back in their car. You know, like, “Hey, Buddy, I think you dropped this–here.”

[nok610]

“I’d like to catch it and throw it back in their car.”

You read my mind.

[JackTrade]

Like Wbsprudels, it gets to me no matter what I’m driving.

I love cars as much as bikes (that’s why I dislike the term “cager” as much as I do “organ donor”), and the thought of a lit cigarette hitting my paint job really grinds my gears.

Funny how very few people now consider it appropriate to throw say a coffee cup out the window (though we’ve all seen it…sigh), but some smokers seem to think it’s just fine to do it with their butts. It’s just so thoughtless; I’m no hardcore environmentalist, but the idea of throwing one’s trash on the ground seems, for lack of a better word, uncivilized.

[megaspaz]

ooga booga! call me uncivilized… *shrugs*

[Eddiepowerfm]

I ride a bicycle and hate seeing any trash but especially broken bottles. Lazy lo-life’s always thinking somebody else will clean up after them.

[Candice]

I do care about the environment, I don’t think people should use the world as their own personal ash tray or garbage can, we do that already with our “contained” garbages that leak poisonous chemicals into our drinking water, etc, etc. So, people could at LEAST, please, don’t throw your garbages out of the car windows to fall on your fellow human riding behind you, thank you!

[SafetyFirst]

I use my ashtray, but my buddy’s car honestly doesn’t have one. He flicks out the window. I’ve been training him to at least look around for motorcycles around him before he sends it out the trash portal, by explaining to him that it could cause mucho problems if it landed on a motorcycle riders gear or got stuck in their half-helmet.

[Rab]

Geez! Give it a rest you guys…

Haven’t smokers been browbeaten and stigmatized enough yet?

There are far more important things to get upset about in life…

Rab (a long time ex-smoker)

[JackTrade]

…but about the trash being thrown at you, that’s all.

I’m all for smoker’s rights (I used to myself)…but I’m not for the right to throw one’s garbage all over the place, and particularly not on my vehicles.

It’s just the thoughtlessness that gets me. I’m sure few people are mean-spiritedly chucking garbage out the window on purpose; rather, they just don’t think about how their actions could affect others.

I once popped my hood and found a full-size Dorito bag adhering to my radiator, and I’ve spent long periods of time with bug n tar remover getting gum off my rear fender…it’s no fun.

[zeppelinfromled]

As a former smoker, this doesn’t bother me that much. I don’t usually follow close enough to get hit by a butt that they flick out of the window (unless they flick it straight up). The litter bothers me a bit. It’s not like their car isn’t going to smell like smoke, so they should just use their ash tray. But when I see areas on the side of the road covered in litter, it’s not the cigarette butts that I notice, it’s the empty food containers, etc. As long as they’re not flicking them in areas where fires are likely to start or in pristine wilderness, it doesn’t bother me that much.

What bothers me, and isn’t really anyone’s fault, is having to breathe in the smoke that someone blows out of the window. When I’m following behind a smoker in relatively heavy traffic, I’ll usually do something to get in front of them, or I increase my following distance a lot and a few cars will usually get between me and the car in question. I don’t blame the smoker. When I was a smoker, I smoked in my car too. And it’s not like they should put their cigarette out when a motorcycle gets behind them. It’s just something that I try to avoid when possible.

[JackTrade]

…the smell actually makes me nostalgic and yep, jealous.

[zeppelinfromled]

I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t like the smell anymore. And before that, the smell would make me want a cigarette, so that wasn’t good either.

[Amoryl]

it seems to me that a lot of smokers have become considerably ruder about smoking. maybe it’s their reaction to the various places limiting smoking areas or something, but it seems that there’s a lot more angry smokers, and a lot more just purely thoughtless smokers.

seriously, when I was younger I remember people actually used their ashtrays, now most cars I’ve seen with smokers have completely empty ashtrays (or they store random crap like coins or chapstick or something in em) because they just ash and flick the butt out the window. I’ve also noticed that far far fewer people anymore step on their butts when they’re walking down the street. they used to drop the butt and then crush it so it wouldn’t still be burning, now it seems everyone just finishes and flicks it as far from themselves as they can. I’ve often almost been hit by flying butts from people who didn’t even bother to glance around before flicking it.

I’ve had cigarette butts fly INTO my cage by other cagers flicking it out the window. it pisses me off.

[Clenzer72]

I actually got pulled over for tossing a butt out the window…it’s a criminal offense that the District attorny prosocutes. Minimum 1000 fine! I got off with a warning. And that was years ago, now I never flick a but out a window. Most cars these days don’t even come with ash trays…so the next best thing is the empty water bottle, coffe cup, soda, or redbull can in the cup holder!
Those hit by butts, the Thrower mote than likely doesn’t even know your there.
I would love to see a catch a burning butt and toss back in video! Driver would be shocked! Lol

[Author]

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