San Francisco police said they would cite Jonathan Fish for a misdemeanor in connection with the destruction of his 2004 Ford Expedition on Thursday, February 17. Apparently, it is a misdemeanor in San Francisco to toss a burning cigarette onto the road while driving.
And it is still apparently a misdemeanor if the cigarette does not actually touch the road, but instead blows back into your 2004 Ford Expedition and sets the interior on fire, causing a billowing cloud of black smoke that forces you to pull over and leap from the vehicle, after which (because you forgot to shift into “park”) the blazing car rolls on and crashes into a guardrail, then burning until it is completely destroyed.
The death of Fish’s $30,000 SUV tied up traffic on the Bay Bridge for more than an hour Thursday morning. Fish himself suffered only singed hair.