Do you want to know how a corrupt, incompetent, sleazy plutocrat and reality TV show host became president of the United States? It’s not because he’s doing good things for some underclass, or because he’s representing the under-represented, or even because the Russians told people to vote for him. It’s actually because a lot of resentful white people felt like waving a middle finger at everyone. Here’s a beautiful example of that phenomenon, the ‘hobby’ of “rolling coal”, that is, tricking out your truck so you can make it spew dirty black clouds of smoke at people.
Entire dissertations could be written about rolling coal. Even more than Trump’s ascension, it seems to perfectly capture a moment in time, an inarticulate yawp of protest from angry white men. They feel disdained and overlooked and they will blow thick black smoke in your face until you pay attention.
There’s no faux nostalgia involved. Unlike with, say, hunting, there’s no tale of rugged rural self-sufficiency to draw on. This is not some sturdy heartland tradition with which meddlesome elites want to interfere.
Rolling coal is new; it just caught on a few years ago. It does not improve the performance of a truck. It has no practical application or pragmatic purpose of any kind. It is purely aggressive, a raw expression of defiance: I can pollute your air, for no reason, and no one can stop me.
It makes sense. Donald Trump is the political equivalent of just vomiting disgusting sludge on people.
This is not rational. They’re spending thousands of dollars to modify their trucks to be less efficient, just to spite people.
But to diesel owners like Corey Blue of Roanoke, Ill., the very efforts to ban coal rolling represent the worst of government overreach and environmental activism.
Your bill will not stop us!Mr. Blue wrote to Will Guzzardi, a state representative who has proposed a $5,000 fine on anyone who removes or alters emissions equipment.
Why don’t you go live in Sweden and get the heck out of our country,Mr. Blue wrote.I will continue to roll coal anytime I feel like and fog your stupid eco-cars.
Remember this when they start babbling about freedom. It’s only freedom for them, and they’re not going to tolerate the freedom of others to drive a more efficient and ecologically sound vehicle, like a Prius…and some like to fog bicyclists as well.
Hope they all end up with asthma at the very least ,you have got to wonder how their brains work .
Perhaps there is such a thing as too more freedom.
Should be much instead of more ,.
An edit thingy might be useful on here .
I’m trying to think of any kind of historical parallel to this behaviour. Doing something harmful, costly and outrageous just to annoy others. Performative arseholishness purely for the sake of it. It’s not easy.
It’s a cliche, but it’s time for liberals to come out strongly against sticking forks in electrical outlets. Man, would that ever trigger us, IhopeIhopeIhope.
Perhaps most governments, most wars, and all religions?
Albeit they don’t exist / happen “just” to annoy others.
There are 330 million people in this country. Many millions own pick up trucks. I suspect that this is not a real thing. There may be a few hundred people who are doing this, but I doubt if there are any more.
I live in southeastern Ohio (yes coal country) and while I can tell you just what I see every day driving quite a bit, I have never seen one of those things. I have and do every day see dozens of Prius (Priuses?) I suspect that this really is fake news. Something to be shocked about what the lesser breeds are capable of you know.
I live in alberta and see it all the time.
Ronald Couch. #6
Priora.
@4- Kip T.W.-
There should be a law with a hefty penalty for violators. If the gov’t tells us not to stick metallic objects in sockets or appliances, who the hell do they think they ar….[zap, crackle, sizzle]
I saw one in Alberta the other day on the highway. I wanted to give him a gesture, like the armpit fart sound effect motion, because that’s what this kind of thing makes me think of. It’s like people obsessed with farting loudly in public, constantly.
Ronald Couch @6
I live in Columbus and I’ve seen a few different trucks do this, including one in my neighborhood. I don’t think this is about “lesser breeds” at all – this is something you need quite a bit of money to be able to afford to do – both from the wasting fuel perspective and just the paying for the mods perspective.
I actually suspect that it’s more of a suburban/ex-urban thing and that living in southeast Ohio I can see why you might not have seen it (I don’t see it when I go to visit family up in Northwest Ohio either, but I have seen it when I visit family in Cleveland). I think some conservative men who live in the suburbs are very insecure about their manhood and do a whole lot of signalling to indicate that they’re still “real men”, and this is one of those things.
It does exist. And it is an amping up of old school juvenile male attention seeking behaviors. Refer to glass pack mufflers and sub-woofers. Oh…and for middle aged juvenality, look up Harley and similar motorcycles.
I may have actually seen a truck rolling coal once. Or it was an engine badly in need of service, but at the time it seemed intentional. Today is the first time I heard a name affixed to such practice. Obnoxious.
I’ve only ever seen one, but it definitely exists. It was on I-90 just outside of Butte, Montana: twin vertical exhaust pipes three or four inches in diameter just behind the cab belching thick, black smoke. I have to say, it had the intended effect, if the intended effect is to piss of libtards like myself.
@12-
Subwoofers and electrobass were a cool thing even if overdone and inappropriate at 2am in a residential area when people are sleeping. There was a whole subculture of competition bass and my dad suggested buying stock in hearing aid companies. But the booming bass was only part of it. Some of the music was (still is) really cool. Back in the day before computer editing people had to have a talent for megamixing. Sadly the genre (Miami, Detroit, and pre-gangsta LA) got corrupted by vulgar booty bass and monotonously repetitive trance rave, which also corrupted Chicago House.
Partly correlated with subwoofers was the unpractical but aesthetic lowering trend. Then came skateboard cars and neon.
The phenomenon certainly does exist, albeit in at least one sense it is location-dependent: It’s essentially unknown outside the States.
There don’t seem to be any statistics (numbers) per se, but in ‘Rolling Coal’ in Diesel Trucks, to Rebel and Provoke (Sept-2016) it is reported:
The practice and/or modifications are explicitly illegal in some jurisdictions — this is in addition to the laws forbidding modification / disabling of emissions controls.
I first heard of the practice via a bicycling forum several (four?) years ago, where a group cycling in Colorado(?) reported being deliberately targeted by some jerk in a pickup.
Le Monde, referencing Newsweek, says the phenomenon started in Arizona and Idaho due to “anti-federal and anti-EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) extremism of these states, where the most extremist climate deniers live” (Generalissimo Goggle translation of VROUUUUUM — Le « coal rolling », ou comment polluer plus pour polluer plus (et s’opposer à Obama) (French), July-2014).
Another juvenile male trend I never got was oversized shants hanging low and flashing the boxer shorts. I started seeing this in my mid to late 20s and was my first really salient sense of experiencing a generation gap of my own.
Sure speedos and the late 80s biker short rage were kinda obnoxious too.
But at least these clothing decisions weren’t about spewing loads of smoke at the demonized Other. A sad reflection on society there.
Re: cartomancer @ #3…
Try “potlatch.”
Sounds to me like folks ought to buy some produce and sneak up on these vehicles while they’re parked….
In reference to “45”. It has long seemed to that people only voted “Tr____” out of hatred for the entire system. Not “for” him, rather “against everything”. They all knew he was “incompetent” which made him perfect choice to wreck everything.
“He” keeps reinforcing my attitude.
?
Just sharing
whheydt #18
Not even close.
To Mr. Blue I would say, “why don’t you go live in Hell and get the hex out of our country.” Hell seems to be the place they want to turn our country into, after all.
How is deliberately obscuring another driver’s vision not attempted murder?
Accurate.
“…protest from angry white men. They feel disdained and overlooked…
As birbrightsactivist says, “I am feel uncomfortable when we are not about me?”
https://twitter.com/probirdrights/status/368542088897372161?lang=en
@18:
No. The colonial ban on the practice wasn’t enough, you just have to smear indigenous people now, too?
There are things done to follow trends, neon and afterburners on hotrodded cars or starting every explanation with “So…”. Some stuff is wasteful overkill such as:
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/auto/2018-dodge-challenger-srt-demon-preview/
Wow!
But (So…?) this rolling coal seems more the equivalent of deliberately blaring an airhorn directly into the ear of a fellow human being. There should be recourse for such overtly hostile acts.
<3
Coal rolling seems like a nastier and more destructive version of sticking a noisemaker on the wheels of your chopper bicycle in the '70s and them "graduating" to removing the silencer on your motorbike; impairing the performance of your own vehicle just to be as noticeably obnoxious as possible.
@cartomancer, #3
Jacobin Mag: “A Plea For Culinary Modernism”
“In the great kitchens of the few — royalty, aristocracy, and rich merchants — cooks created elaborate cuisines. The cuisines drove home the power of the mighty few with a symbol that everyone understood: ostentatious shows of more food than the powerful could possibly consume. Feasts were public occasions for the display of power, not private occasions for celebration, for enjoying food for food’s sake. The poor were invited to watch, groveling as the rich gorged themselves.”
A somewhat sarcastic but still serious question: Given the number of heavily armed and trigger-happy Americans, is “rolling coal” all that great an idea?
Ronald Couch @6:
It’s a thing down here in NC. Last one I saw was a white older model Chevy with TRUMP stenciled across the back and a stovepipe belching thick black crust up the passenger door. Most of them aren’t quite so homemade looking though. The modifications cost thousands of dollars so usually I see them on newer model “luxury” trucks. Um I mean work trucks, totally that is what they are for, yup. A frequent feature on coal rollers is the addition of side mirrors wider than the lane and/or a suspension which raises the vehicle profile of an already oversized vehicle to where their front bumper is level with the rear windshield on a midsized SUV. It’s manspreading for car culture.
It’s also illegal, but so long as they can modify to pass emissions and the truck doesn’t belch smoke constantly, it doesn’t seem like there is a lot of enforcement– although I have seen fewer in the past several months so maybe citations for pollution have finally caught up with the polluting activity.
jrkrideau @29: The coal rollers and the gun nuts are generally the same people, and they don’t target each other.
Start calling them “coal burners” and see if they keep it up.
They can look forward to a heightened risk of scrotum cancer as a badge to decorate their manhood. Rolling coal is tantamount to rolling PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) known to be carcinogenic. The cancer plagued chimney sweeps in Victorian England…but the difference is that the sweeps offered a practical service to keep their environment reasonably clean.
@31-Onamission5
A perusal of Youtube indicates that some are targeting BLM and Trumphaters. Look up Rolling Coal on Protestors if you dare. I cannot in good conscience link it.
Some diesel drivers might just do coal rolling *without* targeting others as an occasional party trick. Juvenile excess. But Youtube shows the malicious intent behind some (or most?) of this nonsense.
Unfortunately, I’m the disabled driver of a Prius in Texas. I’ve had thick black smoke “rolled” at my car three times in the last six or eight months. I’m still recovering from two very painful back surgeries and I can only drive short distances to go to doctor appointments, physical therapy, the gym, the grocery store, etc. I’m also still very shaky driving in traffic. It’s downright dangerous when these yahoos do this to me and literally cut off my visibility.
I’ve also had to put up with pick-up drivers honking loudly and cutting me off in traffic. I’m not sure if this is because my car is a Prius, because I have a handicapped plate, because I’m driving slowly and carefully, or a combination of all three. They do seem to target the most vulnerable drivers.
Seen it a bit in the suburban areas just outside of Birmingham, AL, especially those racially segregated street to street instead of neighborhood to neighborhood. Haven’t seen it in the actual rural areas except where they border a suburb where younger Boomers and older Gen X’ers who made decent money back in the 90’s moved to to get away from the city (i.e. the suburbs surrounding the city proper).
My nephew expressed a desire to do this to his truck in the past, though he hasn’t as far as I know. I asked him why this was something he wanted to do, but it was a disjointed, buzzword-laden mumble of an explanation. That said, as disorganized as his reasoning was, it was supplemented by a certain sort of posturing. Really, the attitude reminded me of a guy I used to hang out with who would sullenly (though I’m sure he’d label it “rebelliously” or “defiantly”) turn his stereo off whenever his dad asked him to turn the volume down and insist he either play it as loud as he could or he not play it at all when his dad told him he didn’t have to tun it off, just down. That his dad was asking because he worked nights and was trying to sleep didn’t really enter into it as far as the guy was concerned.
Under the ancient legal custom of Ubi fumus, ibi ignis it should be legal to set their trucks on fire.
Yet.
We don’t know how many “coal” fumers there are, but we do know about how many gun nuts there are: Around 3% own half of all the guns (or about 8 million people owning eight or more guns).
Coincidently, 8 million seems to be about the annual sales of pickups. But we don’t know the fraction — presumably very small — which are then modified to fume. (I can’t find any proxy numbers, like conversion kit sales.)
Anyways, my guess is gun nuts outnumber, substantially, fumers. Which implies, eventually, a “coal” fumer is going to annoy a gun nut lacking the proper sense of control.
That’s only considering the most-gun-owning nuts. Many more people own guns (just not so many), seemingly making it likely eventually a gun owner with poor control and a fumer will shoot it out.
And “coal” fuming is dangerous and sometimes explicitly illegal — raising the prospect of gun nut / owner who is also a fumer (and lacking control) being challenged by a
copgoon (who don’t seem to have any control, especially if you’re black).I think you nailed it it is all about resentment.
All that alt-right, the MAGA it is a major part of racism and anti-feminism
I had a job some years ago where I was forced to ride around in a truck all day with a guy my supervisor who loved to listen to rush ditto-head. the one note he always hit in fact I do not think I ever heard anything else but resentment some times directly and some times a little bit of center with some blame the other.
those trucks are for folks who have more money than sense. I doubt there are many who use a truck to make a living would waste the money on such a stupid gesture as rollin’ coal unless of course they were consumed by resentment.
it is about as manly as putting a sock full of sand in your pants so as to appear well hung.
uncle frogy
I will say this. I’ve never owned a gun (my wife does), but when I see these assclams, this human excrement, I am VERY tempted to start exercising my second amendment rights.
Somehow you just know that removing someone who would think this was cool from the planet could only be a good thing.
No, but a potato might.
I have moderate (and occasionally severe asthma). Somebody deliberately blowing toxic smoke in my face is committing assault with a deadly weapon. I may not like my life all that much, but I take a very dim view of people who try to end it. Suffocation is a particular berserk button for me. At the very least, someone rolling coal on me is gonna lose a tire. Or a window, if there’s a suitable rock handy.
hemidactylus @34:
I’ve personally witnessed assholes belching black smoke into intersections as they pass through (everyone has to wait it out or risk an accident), at occupied bus stops, bicyclists, mopeds, and yes, Priuses, so the idea that they’d also smoke out protesters doesn’t surprise me. Some mods have the smokestacks coming out the back of the cab like the dingus in the linked video demonstrates, but most I’ve seen, it’s low and angled towards the right, you know, where the bikes, pedestrians, and cars they’re passing are. I’m sure it’s a total coincidence and not malicious whatsoever. /sarc
Reminds me of the ranting guy in Fallout 4 who they tell, “I think we have found the perfect candidate.”, right after he goes into a rant: “I seen the back of them Abraxo boxes. ‘Not for consumption’? Don’t you tell me what to do, I’ll eat what I want!”
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_114
vucodlak @41:
You summed up my sentiments the first time I saw one of these. “Well there’s a tailpipe begging for a potato.”
Re: a_ray_in_dilbert_space (#40):
A bridge too far, thank you. Anyhow, why not shoot the truck instead? Remember: It assaulted you and you were standing your ground. You’ll be a Good Guy with a gun (TM), a genuine Hero (R).
I’ve seen a few around my area.
Unsurprisingly, they also had fake testicles hanging from the trailer hitch.
@12 My name for middle aged men with newly bought motorcycles is Rebel with a paid off mortgage .
So these rolling coal guys think its funny because the smoke gets into the ventilation system of targeted cars. Why not give them a taste of their own medicine. Throw a container of butanoic (butyric) acid back at them. When the container breaks on their windshield, some of the contents will get into their truck’s ventilation inlet.
@12 & 47-
At worst the loudest Harleys create a bunch of noise pollution or nuisance. They in general don’t seem to be crossing the same threshold of targeted coal rolling. I do recall bikers assembling to shield military families from Westboro.
The superbike riders are more of a concern because the power they wield. Some are extremely reckless, but that becomes a matter of potential unintended consequence of excessive acceleration and slingshotting through traffic. Harley riders tend to be loud, but seem to be conscientious riders in traffic as far as rules of the road.
I must admit that I laugh at these morons every time I see one of them “rolling coal”. They’ve spent thousands of dollars not only for something that’s stupid, pointless and wasteful, but for something that’s actually harming their precious truck. Every time they activate that device, they’re forcing so much extra fuel into the cylinders that they’re sooting up their valves and forcing soot and fuel past the rings and into the oil system. They’re taking miles off the engine every time (not to mention having to replace the oil much more often, at least if they’re paying attention.) So just remember the next time some idiot does this to you that they’re costing themselves a lot of money and destroying their “freedom machine” in the process. Feel free to laugh at them like the fools they are.
@hemidactylus, 49
I seem to recall there also being some biker organizations for protecting children subjected to abuse by utilizing the stereotype of bikers being badasses. The screened bikers would induct the child as a member in the small support group, maintain regular contact, and come to camp out whenever the child is feeling threatened by their abuser and/or be in the courtroom for moral support when the child is to give testimony.
Most chopper/cruiser riders I’ve encountered seem to understand that they are the most vulnerable vehicles on the road in general traffic, so they usually play nice (if a bit loud) and/or ride in packs to keep themselves safer. Quite a few superbike/pocket-rocket riders seem to forget their extreme vulnerability because they are a bit more maneuverable and faster accelerating than bikes made for long-ride comfort.
I’ve taken to thinking of his tweets as a more sanitary version of throwing poo.
MattP@51, A quibble: “Most chopper/cruiser riders […] seem to understand that they are the most vulnerable vehicles on the road in general traffic, so they usually play nice”. I concur, when talking about motor vehicles.
For vehicles in general, bicyclists are the most vulnerable. In my experience, in multiple countries including the States(albeit there mostly California), most motorcyclists of all forms seem to understand that, and can go out of their away to avoid creating a problem. I would like to think that is reciprocated, but as motorcyclists and bicyclists don’t actually seem to mix much, I don’t have any sort of an insight there.
This is simply a quibble, I concur with your general point. And I also have (vague) recollections of the child-protection motorbikers, albeit I could be confusing / conflating with a number of other motorcyclist worthy causes.
Poo can be washed off. The twittings remain.
As a frequent bicyclist, I don’t really mind the Harley riders. Hear them coming in plenty of time to pull off, wave them all past. Get a few waves back. Truck owners with bad attitude on the other hand, avoid at all costs. Our local few assholes would roll coal too if they could, after running you right off the road into a tree.
@blf, 53
I really should have worded it as ‘non-human powered vehicles’. Bicycles are definitely the most vulnerable vehicle legally found on most roads, but the roads where I live in Georgia are also so intensely inhospitable that they are rarely able to be seen on the road. Most of the roads are poorly designed, have lots of hills, and have a 45mph or greater speed limit. Additionally, many of the local drivers neither expect bicycles on the road nor know how to drive safely on the same road as bicycles. Basically, very dangerous (outright suicidal) to use anything less than a >50cc scooter if not in the downtown/oldtown area, university campus, neighborhood subdivisions, or certain backroads that have lower speed limits and/or lower traffic levels.
Don’t recall encountering anyone rolling coal, but plenty of local jackasses with lift kits and modified exhausts so likely several of them equipped to shit soot on command. Also plenty of locals burning leaves and shit despite the fact that we have been under indefinite watering restrictions for several years because of drought due to climate change they deny humans are causing.
What cause do “coal rollers” have to be resentful? These entitled asses have a raft of social and economic benefits supported by their communities that they are exploiting, the most obvious of which is the very roads they drive on. They are deliberately, even flamboyantly, hurting others for no reason other than because they enjoy it and will suffer no repercussions. It’s the politics of harassment.
@26 said: “Some stuff is wasteful overkill such as: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/auto/2018-dodge-challenger-srt-demon-preview/ Wow!”
And the irony is that Dodge had to change their advertising since a stock electric car (sans the noise and smoke) can out accelerate that excessive vehicle to 60MPH, and even in the quarter mile since that Dodge has a tendency to either spin its tires or outright break something trying.
https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-s-p100dl-still-quicker-to-60-than-new-2018-dodge-challenger-srt-demon/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZeiQT0yDj0
If some Trumpian asshat blows coal smoke maybe go back to a more progressive crosscultural means of annoying the fuck back from my heyday…boom the hell outta this shit back:
https://youtu.be/0idGpzcZhUc
But you need to have some serious wattage and subwoofers.
@chrislawson #57
They are resentful that they don’t have an underclass of blacks/poor whites that is is inherently socially acceptable for them to shit on. And that people give them the side eye (definitely not assaulting them like they do to others) because they want to drive a big truck even though they have never hauled anything or even had more than 2 people in their vehicle in their lives. People are hurting their feelings so they feel justified in assaulting people they associate with those who hurt their feelings. But, gods forbid anyone they hurt even mention it or their free speech rights are being violated. Don’t even try to ask them how assaulting someone with soot is free speech instead of assault, though.
Oregon has a ‘polluting vehicle’ report system, takes about thirty seconds to fill out, so I just note the details and turn them in. I’m sure they reverse the modification to pass, but they still have to do that and waste three hours waiting at the deq testing station for the test. I’m sure they think they’re just ruining my whole day with a six second burst of soot though…
The practice and/or modifications are explicitly illegal in some jurisdictions — this is in addition to the laws forbidding modification / disabling of emissions controls.
I would have thought that they’d be legally defective* and eligible to display a virulently pink or neon yellow sticker identifying them as such. Until the defect(s) have been remedied and certified by a relevant police or transport dept officer. At least here they’d most certainly be taken off the road.
*Especially if they’ve modified the chassis/suspension to not comply with the manufacturer’s specifications as well.
62: Most (all?) US station have pretty minimal restrictions on alterations to vehicles, other than emissions systems. Generally there is no requirement that vehicles remain as built, just that modifications meet the same requirements all vehicles must. If you want to drive a VW bus with bits stuck on to look like a thirty foot dragon, so long as it has current registration and insurance, the required lights, passes emissions, and meets a few other general regs (a common one is no part of the body may extend lower than the wheel rims, for instance) it’s all good.
@mostlymarvelous, 62
Many (most?) jurisdictions in the US do not have any regularly scheduled mandatory emissions or safety testing like the MOT or NCT.
In Georgia, pretty much the only time you need a government inspection is if you want a title for a kit/scratch-built vehicle, or if the vehicle has had its title modified because of documented damage or theft and you are trying to get a new or modified title. A valid title is required to get the vehicle registered to then acquire a license plate (with yearly registration renewal stickers) and insurance. If the government, lenders, and insurers are never notified of the damage and you go through less scrupulous channels to get the repairs done so that the title never gets modified to salvage/scrap/etc., then you can keep a horribly unsafe repaired/modified vehicle on the road almost indefinitely as long as the registration and insurance are kept up to date. If anyone discovers and reports the damage (insurer, lender, impound, etc.), then the title will likely be modified to salvage/scrap (revoking registration and requiring surrender of the license plate) and there may be fines or penalties depending on the circumstances. But most counties in Georgia do not require any inspections to renew the vehicle registration to get the new sticker (a few counties do require a yearly smog check – mostly Atlanta metro area – but there are several possible exemptions to the smog check), and insurance companies probably will not require any inspections except to initially insure the vehicle or to qualify for certain discounts.
There are some obvious modifications that can get you a ticket (e.g., lack of seat belts or overly tinted windows), but might not necessarily require an inspection that would discover potentially illegal emissions modifications or unreported crash damage.
I thought as much.
I’m not overly concerned about a VW tricked out to look like a dragon. However, mucking about with chassis, wheels and height must mean _at least_ an effect on the vehicle’s centre of gravity. It seems ridiculous to me that the manufacturers are made to include all kinds of safety gadgets and gizmos, but once someone’s paid money for a vehicle, they can turn it into a constant threat of rollover and no one blinks an eye.
And crumple zones built into the vehicle’s design will no longer work as intended if the whole structure is now raised (or lowered) significantly. Utterly weird.
We have a few of them in Normal, IL, and I’ve seen them drive through campus and let ‘er rip. Trying not to think about what it would do to a student with asthma. And of course they have the obligatory MAGA stickers.