To the editor:
It never ceases to amaze me how many cars, regardless of age or model, do not come equipped with ashtrays. This must be the case because, to my observation almost without exception, drivers who smoke throw their still-burning cigarette butts out the car window.I offer as proof the area near any traffic light or stop sign and the myriad filters in drifts across the ground.
What a person does in the privacy of his own car is of no concern to me. However, when a hot cigarette is tossed out a car window, I, too, get a bit hot. Not only is the tosser littering the community but also inviting a fire.
If cigarettes can be so callously thrown on city streets, they can just as carelessly be dropped in forested areas or any burnable field along the roadway. I implore all smoking drivers to consider this thoughtless habit and use the ashtray for its proper purpose. Neither the roads nor the forests need your unwelcome deposits.
Lewis E. Ershler
Salt Lake City