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Yeah, I'd HAPPILY report every single truck rolling coal around me if there was a place to report that information. Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around co
by cogman10 6mo ago
Yeah, I'd HAPPILY report every single truck rolling coal around me if there was a place to report that information.
Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around cop cars and, obviously, nothing happened.
This is just gross privacy intrusion masquerading as "protecting the environment". We don't need 100% compliance to the law and simple prosecution/ticketing of obvious violations would go a long way towards solving the problem outright. Much like we didn't need our cars emailing prosecutors every time someone drove without a seat belt on. Cops giving out tickets for not wearing a seatbelt was enough.
- andyjohnson0 6mo agoFor those, like me, who aren't familiar with the term "rolling coal": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal
- hughdbrown 6mo agoI had a driver in a Ford F-150 do this in front of me last week as he pulled away from a light. The smoke totally blacked out the windshield for 5 seconds while I was in motion. I was totally blinded by this. I had no idea this was a thing, much less that it was something people did on purpose.
- bityard 6mo agoI wish they'd go back to just hanging plastic testicles from the trailer hitch, honestly.
- malfist 6mo agoSomething like these? https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1h82ja1/new_generation_of_truck_nuts/ https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1h82ja1/new_generati...
- mindslight 6mo agoMaybe they finally realized that they had been giving their trucks gender affirming care.
- js2 6mo agohttps://old.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/1tdj76y/oc_idiots_in_monster_truck/ https://old.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/1tdj76y/oc_id... Many more: https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/search/?q=coal&restrict_sr=on https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/search/?q=coal&restric...
- donkyrf 6mo agoIt's very much on purpose. To do it with a modern diesel truck you need to remove the DPF, and reprogram the ECU to run rich and to ignore the missing DPF.
- marysol5 6mo agoHad a car in front of me have a rapid deconstruction of the engine in front of me while driving down a motorway. Driving into a ploom of steam and smoke, while also being hit with fragments was terrifying.
- rsync 6mo ago... and for those that assume, understandably, that this is strictly a US cultural phenomenon, I must (sadly) report that I saw a very new Ram 1500 dump black exhaust onto a cyclist on the 9 between Saint-Léonard and Crans-Montana. This happened in summer of 2022. In terms of US cultural exports, for every jazz music and snowboarding I guess there has to be some coal rolling and fake service dogs.
- ChoGGi 6mo agoI see rolling coal pretty regular in Alberta, Canada. Though not as an intentional act towards bicycles/EVs behind the truck, just people with a rich mixture that like burning money. That and it's legal to do a diesel delete...
- Gigachad 6mo agoI’ve never seen it in Australia. Rarely you see a rusted out shitbox with bad emissions but I’ve never seen a new vehicle modified like this.
- mrgoldenbrown 6mo agoI think the wikipedia page downplays how often it's used to try to hurt or annoy cyclists, pedestrians, or anyone who looks liberal/foreign. It's not just anti environmentalists who do it, it's a general MAGA thing.
- KennyBlanken 6mo ago"Try" to hurt? Half-burned diesel particulate is absolutely cancerous, it can enter the bloodstream and cross the blood-brain barrier and they're generating clouds of it, probably thousands of times more than what a modern 18 wheeler puts out in half an hour of driving. And they're doing it to someone breathing hard. If I sprayed some cancerous chemical in someone's face, I'd be arrested within the hour. I'd be on the regional news, even. The double standards around motor vehicles never cease to amaze.
- stavros 6mo agoWtf people are doing this on purpose? What's wrong with people?
- curt15 6mo agoChest-thumping
- llm_nerd 6mo agoCan you provide a citation on this? Sounds like worthless conjecture. Please provide a arXiv claim to back up your post or delete it from HN.
- mmh0000 6mo agoThe "people" doing this are exactly the type of people you'd expect... Just the first thing that came up in a youtube search, there are thousands more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYPMbLO4pAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYPMbLO4pAY
- fsniper 6mo agoWhat on earth? I can't understand USA at all..
- benchloftbrunch 6mo agoWe Americans can't understand ourselves either.
- kstrauser 6mo agoI watched a pickup roll coal in the middle of freaking East Bay, literally within site of downtown San Francisco, on a bicyclist. I reported their license to the California Air Resources Board, and not longer after that I saw it up on jacks in a neighborhood auto shop. That made my day. Asshole.
- cogman10 6mo agoI'm in Idaho, so not such resource exists. It would have to be a federal agency that does the enforcement because our cops/prosecutors/lawmakers won't ever make something like that happen.
- cyberge99 6mo agoYou can take temporary comfort knowing that it’s costing them $7 per gallon for that little asshole stunt. It seems you have to he is especially insecure to intentionally want to burn smoke on someone else. Especially when Tesla’s have a BioWeapon air filtration setting.
- marysol5 6mo agoThe "freedom fighters" who love to cuck themselves to oil barons and hand over their cash, rather then building themselves energy independence systems. They will never cease to boggle my tiny mind
- FireBeyond 6mo ago> Especially when Tesla’s have a BioWeapon air filtration setting. I'm sure it's just as capable as the bulletproof glass.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Tangurena2 6mo agoCalifornia is rather strict on emissions. Other states don't care. I used to work for my state's version of the DMV and the only public facing page where one could report things was to report people who would not register their cars locally (many people who purchase very expensive cars chose to register them in Montana). There used to be a web page to report license plates that were worn and needed replacing (like the reflective coating wore off, or all the paint got scratched off).
- legitster 6mo agoI was on a bike ride with my young kid. We were going up a hill and being passed by a lifted diesel truck. I could tell that the driver was desperately working the throttle to avoid accidentally blowing smoke in my kids' face. Congratulations, buddy. You've designed your life around being such a massive unlikeable asshole to random strangers. But for a brief moment you understood shame. I'm generally pretty libertarian, but I'm all for throwing the book at these guys.
- rootusrootus 6mo ago> I'm generally pretty libertarian, but I'm all for throwing the book at these guys. To me that seems perfectly in line with being libertarian. One of the legitimate roles of the government is protecting people from violence by other people. Libertarians are not anarchists.
- cogman10 6mo agoNot to my understanding. Libertarian protections are from my understanding all about the quantifiable damages that were done by any given action. They don't usually go beyond that. That's why most libertarians would be in favor of blowing asbestos insulation with the thought that "well, eventually the mesothelioma victims will sue which will stop the practice". You couldn't preemptively sue, however, as you don't have any damage you could demonstrate until after the cancer starts. There might be flavors of libertarians that aren't that way but it's my understanding that environmental protections is one of the weaker aspects of the libertarian mindset. Especially since it simply doesn't account for "all the damage is done and the people that did the damage are now gone".
- JoshTriplett 6mo ago(Most) libertarians still support addressing externalities. One common libertarian solution for something unproven would be "it's your job to purchase insurance for this new way of doing things, and convince an actuary that it's safe; the insurance premiums will stop you from taking risks with unproven technologies without appropriate precautions/testing/etc".
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- lovich 6mo agoWith this admin any comment on “protecting the environment” is an obvious lie when they state that climate change doesn’t exist and are opening up every national land then can to resource extraction. Like it’s normally a dubious claim when trying to violate privacy but for them it’s fucking laughable if only it wasn’t so ominous.
- wahnfrieden 6mo agoThey are probably owned by off duty police
- KennyBlanken 6mo agoThe only masquerading is some basic OBD functions slapped onto an app that is entirely designed for the sole purpose of installing emissions evasion firmware. Most of the reviews brag about it, even. And do you really think they're HQ'd in the caymans by coincidence? No. It's to avoid any repercussions. You can get similar basic OBD functions from any of a dozen free apps on iOS or Android that do that all far better and for a few dollars. FFS they even sell another app for editing (ie falsifying) electronic driver logs.
- kube-system 6mo ago> Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around cop cars and, obviously, nothing happened. > This is just gross privacy intrusion masquerading as "protecting the environment". You're conflating two entirely different groups of people working for two different governments with entirely different motivations. It is entirely possible that the cops in the situation you observed didn't have any issue because they didn't think they were breaking any law they enforce. Your local police and EPA Special Agents have different jobs. The Clean Air Act is a federal law. There are 10 states with laws directly targeting "rolling coal".
- hilariously 6mo agoHow about assault? I have stood in a peaceful protest while truck after truck rolls coal in my face and the cops just watch as I am poisoned. If I sprayed mace in the car windows I would go to jail.
- kube-system 6mo agoI mean it technically is. But clearly the cops don’t see need to charge it.
- hedora 6mo agoIf you want to do something about this, given that we have universal surveillance of license plates anyway: Demand that your local government installs PM 2.5 / 10 monitors on each of their spy cams. They'll easily pick up out-of-spec emissions systems. Join the emissions spikes with the license plates. Take the cars that are two standard deviations above the norm for PM 2.5 / 10 increases after they're spotted by the camera, and have them come in for an aggressive smog check. Completely eliminate all other smog check requirements for late model cars because modern tests are just "check the pollution control light on the dash", and "check for tampering". Those checks will only catch honest drivers, since coal-rollers limit themselves to reversible modifications anyway. If we're going to give up our privacy for some amorphous benefits (which I think is a terrible tradeoff), at least let those benefits include annual paperwork. As a bonus, if the PM 2.5 / 10 data is made public, then we'd have much better air pollution monitoring. There's no way this plan costs more than the current system, where every ICE car driver pays ~ $100 to an inspection station every few years. PM sensors are under $100, and you need orders of magnitude fewer sensors than cars.
- Barbing 6mo ago>Demand that your local government installs PM 2.5 / 10 monitors on each of their spy cams. While we're at it can remind 'em Flock politicians don't have our votes
- ErroneousBosh 6mo ago> Demand that your local government installs PM 2.5 / 10 monitors on each of their spy cams You don't need that. You can just take a picture of a car with black smoke coming out of the exhaust.
- internet_points 6mo agoHad too google "rolling coal". That is insane.
- fakedang 6mo agoThis admin caring about the environment and emissions control should be ringing alarm bells and raising red flags.
- WesolyKubeczek 6mo agoMake a law that fines coal rollers heavily, gets their car seized, their driver’s license revoked for life — all for the first offense. Give cops bonuses for the most coal rollers caught, allow them to power trip as much as they like, and I guarantee that a full-on hunting season will open.