While I was up in the Bay Area, I clipped this story from the San Francisco Chronicle:
Jonathan Fish, a 20-year-old San Francisco resident, was cruising across the upper deck
of the Bay Bridge at 10:40 a.m., smoking a cigarette. When he got near the
Harrison Street off-ramp, he rolled down the window of his white 2004 Ford
Expedition SUV and tossed out the butt, authorities said.
Instead of bounding along the pavement, however, the still-lit cigarette
blew back in and set the interior of Fish’s $30,000 SUV ablaze. Black smoke filled the vehicle. Fish pulled over to the far left-hand
lane about 100 feet from the Harrison Street exit and leaped from the
Expedition — leaving the SUV in neutral instead of park. The flaming Expedition rolled driverless into a guardrail by the exit,
where it crashed to a stop and burned to the frame.
California Highway Patrol officers and fire crews arrived and closed the
off-ramp until 11:45 a.m., tying up traffic all the way back to the toll plaza.
Fish had his hair singed but was otherwise unharmed.
The guy is being charged with littering… and criminal stupidity.
I hope he’s convicted on both counts. I can’t believe stuff like that.
Well, that’s what you get for buying an SUV. Cars have safety requirements, e.g. they have to be build out of a single frame — and they probably have to have interiors that can’t be set on fire by cigarettes.
I love my PT Cruiser. As much space as an SUV, without guzzling gas or being unsafe in a crash.
Those same requirements would be in a SUV as well.