Dear Editor:
The media loves to blame the wildfires on cigarettes carelessly thrown from vehicles. They got their information from what source? Out of 10,000 lightning strikes, the cigarette was the culprit. No proof!
I stopped smoking four years ago and am very happy I did. When I did smoke, I always had an ashtray in my car or truck. I never had the temptation to toss a lit cigarette out the window. In fact, the classiest cars and trucks had lighted ashtrays as a prestige item.
Tossing a cigarette out the window is sheer stupidity. I mean, why not just put it out in the ashtray? You know, the amenity that every car manufacturer put in their vehicles? Oops. There are none.
It seems that every car and truck manufacturer decided to remove cigarette ashtrays from their vehicles on or about 2008. So the smoker has a backup camera but no ashtray. So what does the smoker do? ... Get rid of the butt out the window, because there is no place in the vehicle to extinguish a lit cigarette. For 100 years the auto industry provided ashtrays to cater to the smokers. The smokers are still there but the industry removed the ashtray to extinguish the butt.
So is the auto industry at fault for creating all the wildfires? Nope. It is still the guy who flicked his butt out the window because there was no place to butt it out inside his vehicle.
Start thinking. Please.
Leo Vanderbyl
North Vancouver
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