Police Fired Up Over Drivers Who Flick Cigarette Ashes

Rodney Minniers, 42, was driving his red pickup truck through town and, as far as he was concerned, just minding his own business. Police saw it another way. They cited him and gave him a court date.

Minniers had noticed three motorcycle police officers parked along the road as he headed west on Main Street. “Naturally,” he said, “I looked at my speedometer to make sure I was within the posted speed limit, and I was.”

But speed wasn’t Minniers’ problem that day--the cigarette in his hand was. As Minniers learned, flicking cigarette ashes out a window while driving amounts to tossing a burning object from a moving vehicle--a traffic code violation. He was ticketed and given a March 3 court date.

“It’s a public safety hazard,” said Lt. Don Arth of the Ventura Police Department. A burning cigarette, or any similarly smoldering device, can cause roadside fires or be blown into frontyards where flames can ignite.

“That’s how we get a lot of brush fires,” Arth said. Officers will cite people who violate that law, even if it seems trivial, he said.

In Minniers’ case, it turned out, no law was broken. Police investigators determined that his cigarette was not lit, and thus not a hazard. Charges were dropped.