SMALL CAR OWNER HAS "HAD IT" WITH EXHAUST-SPEWING TRUCKS

Augie Firth, blackened from diesel exhaust
gnaws on his soot-covered thumb

Augie Firth's face and hands were smudged and his shirt was stained black.  "It's exhaust soot from a jacked-up diesel pickup that was idling in the lane next to me,"explained Firth, who drives a two-year-old Honda Fit.  "The (expletive) exhaust pipe was almost sticking through my passenger side window." 

Firth said when the truck accelerated from the light, it belched a huge cloud of black exhaust through his open window. "I couldn't even see my steering wheel." 

Firth added that the Tommy Hilfiger dress shirt he paid $60 for was ruined. "It was white when I put it on this morning. Now it's a (expletive) shop rag."  

"They're a menace to other motorists," Firth says, referring
to jacked-up trucks like the one above. 

In addition to astronomical dry cleaning bills, Firth says his wife will no longer hug him and "our couch is all stained and smells like a bus."

One solution, said Firth, is to require that exhaust pipes on higher vehicles exit to the rear instead of to the side.  "It's ridiculous.  Somebody should do something."