Don't toss lighted cigarettes from cars

I travel from Linthicum to College Park via the Baltimore-Washington Parkway every weekday between the hours of 5:20 a.m. to 5:45 a.m. to catch a metro train to my office in Washington. Daily, I see motorists toss lit cigarettes out of their moving vehicles at least once if not more often. On one recent morning, I observed at least four such incidents. Nothing incites my hidden road rage tendencies more than a careless motorist flipping a lit cigarette out of their vehicle window onto the road.

When the cigarette hits the pavement, it will usually burst into a half-dozen miniature flaming embers that can land on a following vehicle, damaging the hood, or land in the vehicle's front grille. If the lit embers enter the grille, they can smolder in the little accumulations of combustible debris such as dead leaves and bugs around the radiator, starting a fire in the plastic-filled engine compartment hours later while the vehicle sits unattended in a parking lot. I have seen it happen.