"Life is tough...

...but it's tougher when you're stupid." - John Wayne

SUV burns on Bay Bridge -- cigarette butt blamed
- Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, February 18, 2005

No ifs, ands or butts about it, Jonathan Fish learned an expensive lesson Thursday about the dangers of littering.

The 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, he told police.

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.

Tossing a burning cigarette onto the road is a misdemeanor, and even though this particular cigarette never actually hit the road, Fish will probably be cited all the same, the CHP said. The fine could be as much as $1, 000.

"Obviously, this guy is fortunate that he wasn't a fatality and that he did not receive any more serious injuries than singed hair,'' CHP Officer Shawn Chase said.