Safe Speed Forums

Many new cars aren't fitted with an ashtray at all. It is only offered as an optional extra "smokers pack". Next time you get a hire car, you'll see what I mean!

Also, smoking with driver's window open and jettisoning dog ends out of the window stops your car from smelling nasty.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

Only the once, and then I adopted the technique that allows me to make sure it stays out after I have flicked it away.

The trick (just in case you are wondering) is to make sure the window is only open far enough (3" or so) to flick the end away.
At this point, you position the cigarette horizontal to the back of the thumb and place your middle finger behind it.
You then flick upwards with your middle finger and the cigarette is guaranteed gone.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

I smoke in the car and have never used my ashtray once, the last thing i want is my new car stinking like an old ashtray.

I will often try and wait for a Service Station if i need a fag so i can have a coffee, but often time is against me so i have a rule for smoking in the car. I slow down and move into L1, wind window down a couple of inches and smoke holding ciggie in right hand holding the wheel between drags, this ensures that most of the smoke goes out of the window. I go to L1 as the reduced speed and less chance of unexpected events while i am enjoying my smoke. And if the worst happens and i somehow drop my fag i can get to the shoulder very easily.

I do throw my butt out the window, if there is something behind me i speed , up a little to create a large gap, open the window fully and put my whole arm out of the window holding the butt behind the window so when i release it there is no chance of it coming back in.

This i believe is very safe and i pose no more risk to other road users or myself than non-smokers do.

Surely people shouldn't be throwing any kind of litter out of the windows of moving cars.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I don't feel guilty for throwing out a tiny scrap of paper and a tiny scrap of leaf (hand rolled, no filter). Does anyone think I should? Serious question...

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Does it explode in to a scary load of sparks when it hits the ground?
Is it "easily bio-degradable"?

I shouldn't have though it would be a problem if those are not the case. Those horrid orange things with fluff in them do seem to hang around for ages though.

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Andrew.

I guess we all perform 'additional' tasks when driving.
Of course these reduce our attention and control, especially if things don't go quite according to plan.
I am happy to defend eating an apple in the same way that folks have defended smoking. My own disposal technique for a (fully biodegradeable) core is to check I'm alongside a grass verge, wind the nearside window down fully, check for pedestrians etc and flick the core sideways out of the window. Heck, if a seed germinates I might even achieve a carbon neutral journey.
Of course, a coordination failure can lead to a car full of apple juice and a greater impact on attention/control than planned.
If most of us do stuff like this (and worse) why accept the premise that driving requires full attention and two hands on the wheel. If this were true we'd all be dead long ago.
Driving a car requires only reasonable care and attention, and this includes reasonable observance of speed limits.
Let's push back against the fanatics on all fronts!

I think the key issue here is that 'proper control' is more a state of mind than it is a matter of what-we're-doing-with-our-hands.

But it's not an easy argument to win (and more so in court!) so we need to be careful not to give the impression that we might be taking a reckless approach. In fact I'd suggest there's a very long way to go before this sort of practical reality is commonplace in road safety - so much so that I hesitate to even mention it on occasion.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I have the opposite reaction to you. I am so used to smokers doing this that the time I was following a car that had an orange glow underneath it, with glowing orange bits being dropped onto the road from time to time. I just thought it was some chav with undercar lighting and a passenger smoking.

I'd nearly run over the first piece of molten metal before I realised that the glowing orange bits were dropping from the exhaust, not the passenger window.

My passenger tried to tell the driver that his engine was about to go on fire, when we got along side a bit later, but he didn't beleive us. Oh, it was a minicab too.

I guess I should have called the police, but he was only doing 20

OK, it's only tiny and biodegradeable, but does that mean you think it's OK for people to throw nose pickings out of the window?

What about apple cores?

Sweet wrappers?

Crisp packets?

Used tissues?

Where will it end?

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Peter - you missed fag ash

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Less of a problem here tha n say australia but what about verge fires, last summer in Essex there were quite a few around the Chelmsford Maldon area.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

In a tailgating thread on another forum I read, someone admitted to throwing used D-Cell batteries out of the window. Only when being tailgated, of course.

That is a bit extreme!!! I favour the "my windscreen is really dirty" method against tailgaters myself....

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

Smoke ban to affect white van man
Scotland's so-called white van man looks set to be hit hard by next month's smoking ban.

Now , it couldn't get any dafter we thought.

Drivers coming north from England will have to stub out their cigarettes when crossing the border from 26 March.

Commercial vehicle owners will also have to place no-smoking stickers in their cabs to comply with legislation

Doesen't say ,but i would have thought that human rights activists would be campaigning for "smoke stops", especially as the article doesent mention passengers.
Be interesting to see how the accident rate amongst comercial vehicles goes up after march.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4677850.stm

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

They are not 'biodegradable'

They make up 15%, 20%, 50% of litter collected, depending on location etc.

Throwing things out of car windows because you are too lazy to sort them out when you get home, or because they stink the car out (hullo, smoking stinks the car out!) is just crappy and selfish.

Please don't do it.

You are no better than the MacDonalds wrapper Chavs if you do.

I was wondering whilst I was tyongi the littering post above:

have there been any studies into smoking whilst driving, like there have been into using mobile phones?

Any such studies would probably yield precisely the 'desired' results - either that or they would be grossly misinterpreted.
Look what we got from the studies into using mobile phones.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Possibly the opposite - as i said - waiting to see if the scottish ban leads to more road rage/ near misses etc.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I wasn't contradicting you at all.
By 'desired' results, I meant the results 'desired' by the govt.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler