Budget, Avis ban smoking in cars

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

Smoking bans are spreading from planes, trains and buses to another mode of transit: rental cars.

Beginning Oct. 1, Avis and Budget will become the first major rental-car companies to ban smoking in their entire North American fleets and to impose a cleaning fee of up to $250 on customers who smoke in the cars.

"The No. 1 request we get is for a smoke-free car," says John Barrows, spokesman of the Avis Budget Group, the parent company. He says a common customer complaint is a car that smells of smoke, adding, "We're addressing both concerns."

Barrows says employees who drive the vehicles are no longer allowed to smoke and the cars will undergo a new inspection upon return. He says it costs the company more to clean a smoky car, because it often has to be taken out of service longer.

Avis is following a smoke-free travel trend that took off two decades ago. In 1988, Congress banned smoking on short domestic flights and in 1990 expanded that to flights of up to six hours. That year, it also banned smoking on interstate buses.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/budget-avis-ban-smoking-cars/story?id=8565519