Smoking while Driving?

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kane

Can't Leave
Dec 2, 2014
429
3
For those of you who smoke your pipe while you drive a vehicle, I would be interested in hearing about your practice and what you think of it.

I have smoked cigars and cigs (not for a while) while driving, but my truck has a stick and it seems like lighting, tamping, etc., could be tricky while shifting through traffic. I could see it better on long highway cruises. I imagine it is a very different experience than smoking in the comfort of a chair at home.

Things have become very busy and I drive a lot, and lately I find driving in my truck provides the time and place to make phone calls (hands free via Suri on the iPhone) and listen to music......it's sort of become a second office.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
My car is definitely a second living room to me, but I don't try to smoke my pipe. Even if I found it enjoyable,

which I don't, I still feel I have to compensate for all the other distracted drivers who are phoning, eating,

adjusting the sound system and heat-and-air-conditioning, wrangling their kids, etc. As you probably know,

a number of studies have shown (so far) that people are not nearly as good at multi-tasking as they think they

are, and when they are doing just two things at a time, their actual ability in either one plunges. Some years ago,

a teenage kid plowed into the back end of my wife's sedan (I was passenger). He was driving his dad's brand new

pick-up truck, and the first thing he did after totaling our car was to cheerfully announce that he could summon

help ... on his cell phone. Yup.

 

cobguy

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
3,742
15
I keep a couple of "nosewarmers" in the truck which are much easier to smoke while driving.
The pipe is packed, tamped and lit before putting it in drive.
Now and then I still do something stupid like knock it against the wheel accidentally

and have ash dump on my lap. :?

 

brudnod

Part of the Furniture Now
Aug 26, 2013
938
6
Great Falls, VA
In the crazy traffic of Washington, DC, it is distracted driving, so, no, no smoking while driving. Not that I wouldn't like to!

 

kane

Can't Leave
Dec 2, 2014
429
3
I hear y'all about the distracted driving. There is an elderly gentleman in my neighborhood who I see driving now and then. He drives an old Ford Fairlane, sports a neat narrow fedora, and has a pipe in his mouth each time I see him. He makes it look easy, very smooth, has been probably been doing it for decades. He doesn't look too distracted.

 

fishfly

Starting to Get Obsessed
Oct 12, 2014
142
38
Dubuque, Iowa
At home at my desk, I use a Zippo, but while driving, I'm just not coordinated enough to handle it. I use a Djeep and an expendable pipe I don't mind scorching the rim on--a cob, a brylon, or a pipe with a repaired cracked bowl. Load before I start, tamp when traffic is light. If I'm in heavy traffic, I'll switch to a cigar (really the only time I smoke them anymore). The real challenge is fishing with a pipe: running the trolling motor, fighting the wind, rigging up, casting, taking off fish, drinking a Coke, and lighting a pipe.

 

kane

Can't Leave
Dec 2, 2014
429
3
Ford Fairlane, a pipe and a Fedora? Now that´s what I call style!
He is really from another time and place, methinks, but I don't know anything about him, but he impresses me as someone who has not been changed by the world. It's just really cool to see someone like that drive by, like it's still 1961. There are a few really old timers around here, still places that are very old time, in spite of being in southern California.

 
May 3, 2010
6,423
1,461
Las Vegas, NV
I usually have a bowl on the way to and from work. With the windows cracked and the sunroof open you can't even tell I've had a pipe in the car.
I don't find it a distraction. I get 'er going before I put the car in drive. Then I'll give a light tamp or a relight at a red light.

 

toby67

Can't Leave
Sep 30, 2014
413
1
Australia
I only smoke when my son is not in the car, I only drive to the next town to do some shopping, however I pack and light and get it going before I take off and open the window a few inches, I won't tamp or relight whilst driving and if the pipe loses heat I put my hand over the top and get it going again and if that fails I put it into the consol for the trip home where I'll tamp and relight before taking off.

 

agnosticpipe

Lifer
Nov 3, 2013
3,332
3,412
In the sticks in Mississippi
I tried it back in the 1980s, and didn't have very good luck with it. I had a brand new 1987 Toyota pickup, and had two unpleasant experiences that led first to a near accident, and second, to a burn hole in my upholstery. I decided it just wasn't worth it. Only smoke at home, or at friends that share the same smoking pleasures.

 
Mar 1, 2014
3,646
4,916
When my truck works I like to have a bowl on the way to work.

Pack and light, then drive.

Right now I'm in a borrowed vehicle though, so it's back to the porch for me.

 

huntertrw

Lifer
Jul 23, 2014
5,219
5,338
The Lower Forty of Hill Country
The car is one of my favorite venues (aside from the piazza and in front of a fire in the fireplace) for solitary pipe-smoking, especially on a multi-hour Interstate highway trip. I pack and light prior to setting out, and open the right-rear window slightly for ventilation. I find that it helps to pass the time, and is both relaxing and invigorating. Further, I always seem to smoke slower in the car and, as a result, enjoy my tobaccos more.
Like warren, if (for whatever reason) I need to put down my pipe, I simply place it in the finger well of the armrest on the driver's door. This is a sad commentary on the automobile of today which lacks an ashtray.

 

mcitinner1

Lifer
Apr 5, 2014
4,043
24
Missouri
Wow, I didn't know newer cars don't have ashtrays .... my truck is a '96 F250 and has a big ol' ashtray. 8)
edit, Do new trucks have ashtrays? 8O

 

peteguy

Lifer
Jan 19, 2012
1,530
906
Done it many times and will do it many more. As most have said, load before I start and then if I need to tamp or relight I wait for a stop light or use my knees to hold the wheel (at lower speeds of course). None of my commute is freeway/highway so that affords me plenty of stops. I would prefer not to smell up the truck but if I didn't pipe on my commute I would miss out on an opportunity that is perfect for a smoke.
Never smoked on the freeway or at higher speeds and probably wouldn't.

 
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