Smoking tops poll of annoying passenger habits

Smoking in the car is even more likely to annoy fellow passengers than back-seat driving, non-stop jabbering or wanting to listen to The Archers, according to a poll of 2,110 Britons commissioned by Craigslist, a classified ads website popular with car-sharers.

Smoking won a landslide victory in the YouGov poll to find the habit most likely to annoy fellow passengers. It was identified by nearly twice as many respondents as back-seat driving and three times as many as such anti-social habits as farting, burping and nose-picking.

Wanting to listen to The Archers irritates as many fellow passengers as wanting to have the window open too much or little.

The poll is the latest blow for in-car smokers, still reeling from a warning in the new Highway Code that drivers could face prosecution for smoking at the wheel. This warning, late last month, itself followed the introduction of the smoking ban in England on 1st July. The new ban prevents drivers on company business from smoking if sharing the vehicle.

Craigslist.org is an online notice-board of (mainly) free classified ads, used to arrange ride-shares by over 250,000 web-users a year in Britain and worldwide. It has sites in 450 cities worldwide including 20 in the UK.

“Ride-sharing on the net is booming”, says Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist. “But we urge those considering it to try and find out first whether their prospective fellow passengers are likely to prove compatible.”

Buckmaster advises asking whether others share your views on smoking or your tastes in music; and, of course now, what they think of The Archers.

Other habits, meanwhile, which at least some poll respondents placed top of their peeve-list include:

Talking on the mobile phone
Listening to an iPod with the sound too high
Wearing unpleasant scent/perfume, or none at all.
Wanting to listen to The Archers.

Buckmaster, an American, does not listen to The Archers himself. “But I am aware that some people find it deeply annoying.”