Yay for annoying militant anti-smoking people! We need more of them! I agree with the OP that being a hybrid driver seems to fit well with the whole non-smoker thing in terms of certain priorities the two movements share. (saving money, environmental friendliness). Another similarity is a certain appeal to people interested in cutting back on global consumption, both on money spent on wasted gas and money spent on treating preventable health problems. In both areas, there's the idea that a little education could save everyone a ton of money, pain and trouble.

 

Sort of related: someone a couple of years ago, suggested that leather would not sell as well in hybrid cars, and I've repeated that question a couple of times....

 

I don't know if this means anything but there is no ashtray in the HCH-II.
This is the first car I've ever seen that didn't have an ashtray. Does the Prius have one? Is the ashtray becoming an option on cars now?

 

Neither my Element or Tacoma have an ashtray, I think they are mostly optional or NA.

 

I'm not militant about it, but after having recently buried both of my parents who died and suffered horribly from smoking-related illnesses, I guess you could say I feel pretty strongly about it.

Mom spent the last few years of her life hovering around 60 lbs., pulling around an oxygen tank, and suffering debilitating respiratory disease since the 1980s. She quit smoking at that time, but the lung damage is irreversible, so she suffered from it until she died.

Dad, who was overweight, sedentary, and having had heart attack(s) since the age of 44. He coughed up loads of mucous ever since I can remember, but he could not quit smoking, no matter how he tried.

Both of them with crystal clear minds, with wit, laughter, and wisdom, when their respiratory system and heart could no longer support them.

It just makes me sad for the kids that smoke, to think of what they will certainly have to go through, at some point down the road.

 

Coyote: your story is very sad, and you certainly have our sympathy and support. I truly wish that tomorrow, smoking will be gone from the earth, if only so that no other son will have to lose his parents in the way that you lost yours.

It's too easy for non-smokers like me to get mad at the smokers themselves, who blow their toxic fumes in our food or faces and strew ash and burn marks wherever they go. We should remember that it's usually the smokers and their families who pay the highest price for this noxious habit. Still, smoking-related illness is so widespread that it touches nearly all of us, and you are wise to point out that it is the next generation we should worry about: that's why I think it is our responsibility to educate people, push for bans, raise taxes, change the culture, and just generally make it as hard as possible for this addiction to spread.

 

Wow Coyote. I'm truly sorry you and your parents had to go through that. My sympathies are definitely with you.

My maternal grandmother quit smoking when she saw my twin sister and I emulating her when we were little kids. But that didn't keep the emphysema away, which eventually caused enough complications to take her life.

As for the cars not having ashtrays or cigarette lighters nowadays: That's all well and good, but one of the unintended consequences I see multiple times per day is the still-lit cigarette butt and ashes flying out of car windows. A big pet-peeve of mine. If you can't keep your ash or cigarette in your car, then stop smoking while driving it! I don't throw my diet pepsi cans out the window.

In our "California wildfire" area, disasters *really can* start from a poorly discarded, still-lit cigarette.

Rick

 

One thing that really amazes me is the number of both firefighters and EMTs who smoke - especially the latter. These are the people who respond day and night to the folks who are suffering from these ailments, providing oxygen and other assistance, carting their dusty butts to the hospital ER again and again... and they know that most of these people (not all, but most) are in that shape because of years of smoking. Yet, they themselves still smoke, ostensibly because of the "stress" of the job or because they "intend to quit" any day now. They see these "frequent flyers" getting worse as the months and years press on, and know that the heart and respiratory problems will get them in the end, yet they persist in smoking. I just don't get it. I guess it's the same with nurses, at least a few years ago it seemed many of them smoked also.

My mom is one of the 50-year smokers, she too quit only when forced to by a prolonged stay in the hospital, and she struggles daily to keep her lungs working. Before she got a handle on controlling her condition - which requires constant vigilance, in-home oxygen, breathing treatments, daily monitoring and adjustment of medications, etc. - she was in the ER numerous times every year. She was on a first-name basis with the local EMTs. They see her in public and know that she has difficulty walking to the back of the local RiteAid to get her meds. They see her difficulty in climbing even 3 steps. Yet, most of them smoke.

Hopefully at least the firefighters know better than to smoke in bed...

 

I always figured a certain percentage of firefighters smoke because they're already breathing in some nasty, noxious stuff in the course of their work -- no doubt they're required to wear breathing apparatus in most instances, but I've driven by some "brush fires" on the highway that had me holding my breath even with the air recirculating... and that's nothing compared to the fumes and gases released even after a fire is put out.

My brother and I have never smoked, but our parents have been multi-pack smokers for over 30 years (I'm 32). Both of us chose not to smoke precisely because we saw, smelled, felt and suffered from allergies due to the smoking we grew up with. We love our parents dearly and they've both curbed or quit for short periods of time, but never very long (never more than a month).

 

Speaking of nurses and smoking, I read a study some years ago that analyzed Doctors and Nurses compared to the general population of the US. Socioeconomic, and other factors must have come into play because it turned out that Doctors and Nurses that smoked lived somewhere around 3-4 years longer on average than non-smokers in the general population.

Of course non-smoking Doctors and Nurses lived even longer, but apparently there are a lot of unhealthy non-smokers.