I am not a smoker. I have never smoked in my life.
But I miss the ashtrays that we used to have in cars.
I always used the ashtrays to keep coins for parking meters and for the occasional pan handler by the side of the road.
Now I have no place to store my coins.
Not being a smoker, I never had any use for the cigarette lighters, either. I routinely removed those from my cars and literally threw them in the garbage. I never needed them. I used the lighter sockets for my device chargers, of course, and I still do.
But the lack of the ashtrays brings up a larger point, particularly now that we have so many wildfires in California. Even though smoking rates are way down from what they used to be, there are still smokers in the world and they drive.
Where do they put their cigarette butts with no ashtrays in cars? They have to throw them out the window. While that may not be a big deal in Ohio, it can quickly be catastrophic in California. Not to mention all the littering. Just look out your car doors at busy intersections. Cigarette butts abound. And I even understand that. Where is a smoker going to put the butts?
What were car manufacturers thinking when they started removing ashtrays from cars?