I actually caught this phenomenon a couple of days ago (and was twitted on Twitter for being so late to the party), but the phenomenon of “Coal Rolling” is now an object of wonder and bemusement at a number of the usual suspects.
For those of you who have managed to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to this point without suffering the knowledge of this particular stupidity, here’s David Weigel to explain it to you:
Forty-five second YouTube clips don’t come any more American than “Prius Repellent.” It starts with a camera angled from the passenger side window of a truck, pointed at the namesake Japanese hybrid car. After 12 establishing seconds, the cameraman moves and points out the back window, where viewers can read the ominous decals:
←PRIUS REPELLENT→
At 23 seconds, the engine revs and the viewer finally learns what the arrows were pointing at. Smoke pours out of dual stacks, right in the path of the Prius, which retreats into the rear view. The truck’s passengers share a well-earned chortle.
That’s right. These Real Americans™ pay good money to modify their vehicles so that they can run less efficiently and pollute more, because, you know, that’s how Hydrocarbon Jesus wants it.
I know, I know. The good Lord must have loved assholes because he made so many of them. But these folks are double-secret-probation cute that way:
There are videos of “hot babes” getting rolled on, and a mega-popular video (more than 3 million views) of an annoying Prius driver complaining about diesel. “She makes me want to do a John Force style burn out right in front of her,” observed one critic on DieselBurners.com.
The derp is deep here. Let’s say you want to roll some of your own coal. There are sites to help you do that. Here’s one — complete with a bit of pure weasel DNA up front:
Disclaimer: This article has been published for entertainment/educational purposes only. We do not recommend you modify your truck in any manner for the sole purpose of soot/smoke production. Not only may excessively high EGTs cause engine damage, but these acts are having detrimental repercussions on our industry. Consider reading the article “Smoke Responsibly” for further information, including how you can help. There is a time and a place to roll some coal – don’t give the tree huggers any ammunition to support further emissions restrictions.
I’m trying to imagine the time and place…and too late re the tree huggers. TPM reports today that this is (obviously) illegal as hell anyway. But never mind, it turns out that there’s a way to roll coal the “right way”:
The best way to blow some serious black smoke is to go all out. Larger injectors combined with aggressive custom tuning will let you lay down some massive clouds of black smoke – the ultimate coal roll. Injectors increase the amount of fuel that can be dumped into your engine per injection cycle, while the tuning keeps the engine thinking it needs more diesel. Throw in a larger injection pump to keep fuel pressures high and add a water-methanol injection system to keep EGTs down and you have the perfect combination. With the flip of a switch, leave your challengers in a stream of thick black soot and then clean up the exhaust stream to keep the authorities happy.
I don’t know what’s most pathetic. The idea of some strangers just trying to get from here to there as “competitors” — think of the terror hidden in that statement, the sheer gut-churning fear of the unknown — or the urge to spend the most possible money to spend more money doing nothing but half-burn all that $4-and-up diesel.
A lot of us liberals pointing and laughing at these assholes have noted that the whole idea is a way for the carbon-industrial-complex to screw more cash out of the credulous, but a lot of folks seem to have missed the other point.
Partially combusted diesel is…no way to put this gently…not good for you. Not at all:
Exposures have been linked with acute short-term symptoms such as headache, dizziness, light-headedness, nausea, coughing, difficult or labored breathing, tightness of chest, and irritation of the eyes and nose and throat[citation needed]. Long-term exposures could lead to chronic, more serious health problems such as cardiovascular disease, cardiopulmonary disease, and lung cancer.[11][7][8] The NERC-HPA funded ‘Traffic Pollution and Health in London‘ project at King’s College London is currently seeking to refine our understanding of the health effects of traffic pollution. Ambient traffic-related air pollution was associated with decreased cognitive function in older men.[10]
Mortality from diesel soot exposure in 2001 was at least 14,400 out of the German population of 82 million, according to the official report 2352 of the Umweltbundesamt Berlin (Federal Environmental Agency of Germany).
…
Since the study of the detrimental health effects of nanoparticles (nanotoxicology) is still in its infancy, and the nature and extent of negative health impacts from diesel exhaust continues to be discovered.
Obviously, the goal of the hardcore coal roller is to give angst and maybe a whiff of the nasties to the fearsome folks who presume to traverse America’s roads in a Prius. But as videos like this one show — the most likely consumers of soot and other particulates produced by the deep need to f**k up one’s own nest are the folks who want to show the world how much smoke they can blow.
The wheels of Darwin grind slow…but very sure.
By the way — all of this can be considered a distant early preview of my conversation on Wednesday. In this month’s edition of my rotating gig as host of Virtually Speaking Science, I’ll be speaking (again!) with Naomi Oreskes, now a professor of the history of science at Harvard. Naomi was my first guest on the show, back in 2011.
That’s when we talked about the lessons of her book (written with Erik M. Conway) Merchants of Doubt, on the ways a handful of Cold War anti-Communist scientists figured out how to sell lies wholesale, leading to the implausible success of a tiny handful of people in casting enormous doubt on the reality of climate change.
Now she and Larsen have followed that work up with a novella, The Collapse of Western Civilization. This little work — it’s just fifty pages, not counting notes and such — imagines a future historian analyzing how 21st societies allowed them to fall victim to climate catastrophes that they/we knew/know are in prospect.
It’s a depressing work, and speculative, and the more important for all of that. If we do go down the road of catastrophe as Oreskes and Conway lay it out, folks like our coal rollers will be a (small but exemplary) part of the reason why.
Tune in. It should be a useful downer — and funny too. Naomi is a hoot, the more so given the pathologies she studies.
Image: Constantin Meunier, Black Country–Borinage, before 1905.
dmsilev
So so tempted to start a rumor that the EPA will be fielding smoke-sensing drones to tag offenders.
Not Adding Much to the Community
You’d think, if they were ‘protesting Obama’ (as I saw it phrased by one story on this) they would make their engines spew white smoke.
chopper
@Not Adding Much to the Community:
Naw, too catholic.
Tyro
So it’s a modification that doesn’t make your car faster or more powerful, it just makes it belch smoke like it has a broken engine?
If you’re going to make some subversive modifications to your car, at least get some benefit out of it.
Linnaeus
@Tyro:
Well, they ain’t the sharpest tools in the shed.
Violet
I just posted about this below. From Weigel’s article on it:
They are who we think they are.
Dan
@Tyro: but it does have a benefit to them: it pisses off liberals. Cleek’s Law in action.
socraticsilence
@Tyro:
This, it’s a completely nihilistic modification, total in the literal sense of the word peacocking (flashy, pointless crap). I mean chip an engine or throwing on an open exhaust can be obnoxious and hurt fuel economy but at least it has some performance benefits this is just dumb.
JPL
Rachel is talking about West, TX and the lack of zoning and regulation. I’m not sure that they hate the President because he is black, they just find it convenient to point that out.
Morzer
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/epa-coal-rolling-short-answer-illegal
Baud
This is perfectly symbolic of the Republican approach to governance.
Mike in NC
Back in the oil crisis days of the 1970s there was a novelty song called “Freeze A Yankee” that went “Drive 75 and freeze ’em alive”. Didn’t seem to mind how much precious gas these yahoos would waste.
Linnaeus
@Mike in NC:
Oil’s useful and all, but you can’t drink it.
SatanicPanic
Woah Naomi Oreskes got a gig at Harvard? Good for her, but bummer for my Alma Mater
dmsilev
Also, I don’t think it counts as “rolling coal” unless you actually are powering your truck with coal. Come on, boys, grab a shovel and start stoking that firebox.
Violet
One of my older English relatives remembers when he and his brother as young men would be in the car. His brother would be driving and he’d be the one leaning out the window to scrape the soot off the windscreen so his brother could see to drive. This was in the Manchester area, full of coal-run factories at the time. The air was thick with it.
Today’s morons have no idea how bad it was and how much clean air regulations have helped everything from the environment to their own health.
Stella B.
At the same time that they’re wasting fuel, I bet they’re complaining about the cost of diesel since O has been in office.
SatanicPanic
One time when I was at boarding school I ate two whole plates of baked beans for dinner, just so I would have extra gas to fart on my roommates. I was 14. I guess some people never grow out of that sort of thing.
Linnaeus
@SatanicPanic:
I certainly won’t begrudge Naomi for going to Harvard, but I always feel a twinge of sadness when Ivy League schools hire away from good state programs.
Bill E Pilgrim
Cole Rollers are worse, they spout animal hair into the atmosphere.
Poopyman
Sadly, they’re likely to live long enough to spawn. And do enough damage to take us with them. Assholes.
Cacti
Stories like these make me wish the POTUS would announce his vehement opposition to bashing your own skull in with a hammer.
dmsilev
@Violet: I have some colleagues from China, including a couple who moved here from Beijing, and the vast vast difference in air quality is a really big deal to them.
hueyplong
We’re getting tantalizingly close to my dream of Obama taking a public stand against the rebellious, freedom-loving middle finger to liberals that is the act of drinking bleach.
dmsilev
@Cacti: I’ve long felt that the Obamas, both of them, should star in a series of public-service announcements advising people not to drink bleach and lick live power outlets.
Trentrunner
The only response is for liberal ladies to start hurling their aborted fetuses at obviously pregnant conservative women.
BUT THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN BECAUSE:
While not all conservatives are assholes, ALMOST ALL ASSHOLES ARE CONSERVATIVE.
pseudonymous in nc
Pipe it into the cabin. Job done.
Cleek’s Law still applies. If you could power America on spite, you wouldn’t need to burn any more fossil fuels, but they’d do it anyway.
raven
Do You Remember the Americans? Steve Still and Manassas
Standin’ by a snow drift in the pale moonlight
Hitchhikin’ west on a highway at night
Tryin’ to get to Frisco, lookin’ for my girl
Here comes a trucker, hope he don’t mind long curls
I remember years ago hitchin’ this same road
Never saw a trucker leave a man out in the cold
No riders sign on the window, never meant a thing
Nowadays they just roll on lookin’ kind of mean
Kind of makes me wonder, scratch my head and kick the snow
Four years of overseas, who are these strangers in my home
Where are the country people does anybody know
Do you remember the Americans, where did they go?
Were they simply bought and sold?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s some pretty amazing rage that they are willing to screw their own car in the vague hopes of offending someone.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Tyro:
Remember this is the same crowd that responds to shit like Earth Hour by doing as much as they can to use up all the energy they can that entire day, fuck how much it hurts their pocketbook come bill time. It pales in comparison to pissing off the libby libs and dicking over any attempts at making the world a better place, so a little extra cash out of their pocket is nothing. Long as they piss off an ‘other’ in some way, it’s a win in their book.
Cervantes
@efgoldman: Exactly. “Too dumb to live” and yet not so stupid that they are unable to turn our lives into a living hell.
Howard Beale IV
@Morzer: I’m just waiting for one of these coal-rolling idiots to cause a fatal accident. At which point, I would have an Executive Order passed that would allow open season on coal-rollers to be shot on sight as being a security threat to the general populace.
Comrade Luke
Hey, how great is it that we’ve finally passed bipartisan gun legislation. Wait, what?
Senate passes vote to promote shooting on public land by 82 to 12.
I hate these people.
Cervantes
@Linnaeus:
What are the alternatives?
The Dangerman
Too bad that FEMA camps aren’t anything but a figment of their imagination; we could retire the National Debt by auctioning the right to beat some sense into these assholes.
Howard Beale IV
@dmsilev: China just signed a deal with IBM to help with analysis on addressing their air pollution.
Tehanu
@efgoldman:
My guess would be by stiffing their ex-wives and kids for support money.
Baud
Deleted. Will repost in open thread.
Linnaeus
@Cervantes:
Aye, there’s the rub.
SuperHrefna
I read this and all I can think is that I filled up my car today: 8.9 gallons, $37, and it will last me for the next 450 miles. Ok, yes, I admit it, I *am* a smug Prius driver.
FromTheBackOfTheRoom
A couple years ago I worked with a guy who got a huge giggle out of YouTube videos of passenger trucks with real-deal locomotive horns shaking the shit out of unsuspecting bystanders/bus-stop denizens/girls/dark-skinned folk.
My reaction was typical of most people that he shared with: First viewing was laugh out loud funny. Second viewing was, “Wait, those people looked pretty freaked” No one cared to indulge this douchebag in further views but if there was a third viewing the universal reaction was “I’ve been doping along the sidewalk minding my own business just like those folks and if some A-hole had pulled a stunt like that I would physically harm that A-Hole.
That former co-worker is one of the same few folks “Rollin’ Coal”.
Get a grip Obots. It’s about as meaningful as an Obama “sternly worded letter”.
Howard Beale IV
@SuperHrefna: I have a Gen II Touring. Sucks in the snow, but otherwise, gets the job done.
Mr Stagger Lee
I wonder if families of those who suffer from asthma can start an class action suit against these a-holes as well as those garages who modify these trucks? Put these f*ckers in the homeless shelter.
Howard Beale IV
@pseudonymous in nc: Noted and logged as a defense.
Eric U.
I have seen this done twice. Once when I was riding on the shoulder in southern New York state on my bike, the other time yesterday in deepest, darkest Redneckistan. I am sure there will be road rage incidents based on this. The incident yesterday was over by the time I drove through the cloud, it was pretty hard to see for a while, and the road was quite busy. I have no idea who the intended victim was.
Contrary to the posts above, there are semi-legitimate reasons to make these modifications to a truck. You can actually save gasoline, at the potential cost of damage to the engine. Also, you can develop more power without generating much smoke. The ability to make heavy clouds of smoke on demand is just a side effect that wasn’t really the purpose of the modification when originally developed.
another Holocene human
@FromTheBackOfTheRoom: haven’t heard one of those bad boys lately. Novelty wore off? Or all the “owner-operator” trucks got repo’d?
You decide.
Glidwrith
@SuperHrefna: I see your smug Prius and raise you a Spark EV. Up to 120 miles on one charge and I run my whole household and car for roughly $40 per month using solar panels.
gnomedad
@Linnaeus:
It would explain a lot.
SuperHrefna
@Glidwrith: I would LOVE an electric car, but I hear the batteries don’t cope well with northern winters. And I tried to get solar panels but I was told my house was too shady. But I’m really happy for you, your set up seems ideal.
kc
It would make an awesome video if some of these “coal rolling” assholes were to mistakenly target some gun freak.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Cervantes: Cannibalism?
Glidwrith
@SuperHrefna: Aww, thanks. Honestly thought it would be years before I could afford such a set up, but a good chunk of luck and timing sort of clicked it into place. Keep checking on both the panels and electric, the tech keeps changing and maybe it will be accessible for you before too long.
Roger Moore
@Linnaeus:
Now that’s the public service announcement Obama ought to make. Sensible people will get the point and try to conserve, idiots will miss it and try drinking oil just to prove him wrong.
The Pale Scot
@Eric U.:
From a long hobby of calibrating Stromberg and Hemmy carburetors, I can say that clouds of smoke of any color means your mixture is too rich (wasteful), or your timing is to far past the optimal point so that the cylinders contents are not fully burned (wasteful) (rigging the timing for better performance is moving the timing before the optimal point to increase oxidation of fuel without causing detonation), or your exhaust valves are burnt and are not sealing properly (wasteful).
Whoever told you that doesn’t work on motors, it’s a matter of physics.
⚽️ Martin
Stand your ground people. Shoot back.
Tripod
This story is all kinds of bullshit. But hey, it fits preconceived notions, so let’s run with it.
xenos
Anybody remember the tree-burning scene from Rollerball?
Between the public not caring about brain-damaged athletes, this sort of destruction-as -entertainment, and the development of corporate rights, I am thinking that cheesy bit of ultraviolent entertainment was pretty prescient. Have to get the DVD and watch it again.
Chris T.
@Tripod: Yeah, who are you going to believe, Tripod, or your lying eyes?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Tripod: Explain please.
Citizen_X
Maybe they’re saying they haven’t elected a pope yet.
Citizen_X
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Yes, please explain to us how those people appearing in those videos and writing those comments aren’t really real.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Citizen_X: So they don’t accept this Pope just like they don’t accept this President?
PIGL
If we were on a lifeboat in the frozen north atlantic, we’d shiv these people and quietly slip them over the side.
The earth is full now. Our planet, or at least our civilisation, can not afford to indulgence a large subpopulation of assholes.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@PIGL:
Why would shivving be necessary? You seem rather violent.
PIGL
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): the knife between the ribs is not strictly necessary, but I expect it would make the quiet slippage easier.
I know I sound violent, but I don’t write very far beyond my convictions. I can see what’s coming, the deaths of billions, the loss of ecosystems evolved over 10s of millions of years, and all avoidable but for our craven inability to confront and neutralise the psychopaths, authoritarian followers and — less formally– the assholes among us. It’s maddening.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@PIGL: A quick shove during a roll of the ship should be enough.
As far as the rest goes, I simply am not as pessimistic as some here (this may include you). I am a firm believer in muddling through. And, oddly, I also believe that people, come push to shove, will do the decent thing. It has gotten us from Olduvai Gorge to here.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Could you clarify how decency got us from Olduvai gorge?
Morzer
@PIGL:
I certainly sympathize with your frustration, but I suspect that starting violence against others would simply rebound on us – and in any case I doubt that our side would be very good at it. On the whole, I think that’s probably better than the alternative.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Morzer: Just go read Matthew Arnold, bitch. Or consider that decency = enlightened self-interest.*
*It is too late in the evening to ask for specific Adam Smith citations.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
I love you too, honey-bun. That said, enlightened self-interest is in the eye of the beholder, no? And I am sure you aren’t citing Matthew Arnold as an expert witness on evolution!
etc etc
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Morzer: You suggest we are not removed from Olduvai Gorge, but I say that we have Stax. I think that I win.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Oh never mind. This is what I get for trying to talk to you seriously. Anyway, I think I am done here.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Morzer: If you reject Stax, you should just go to bed.
Bubblegum Tate
@Morzer:
That’s exactly what these morans want–now they’re gonna complain about how the Obammunist In Chief is using the Environmental Gestapo to take away their freedumz.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
— Wealth of Nations 1:2
Same folks lost the civil war
RIP bro! Rollin Coal at the cemetary! Cause when yure ded at 20 cause shit happen then roal coal! FTW!!!
Family and Friends leaving Sunset…..Givin them hell… Just the way Brent would… This boys and girls made Brent proud… Rollin Coal and raisin hell!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr78soMJcGU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orCzkxf087o
pattonbt
Idiocray (the movie) is not a work of fiction – it’s a prescient documentary.
Central Planning
@SatanicPanic:
Every 14 year old knows farts are funny.
HeartlandLiberal
Flag the videos as threatening violence or harassment (funny, there is no option in the menu for flat out illegal), then post a note like this: “This activity is ILLEGAL. YouTube by allowing these ‘coal roller’ videos is allowing promotion of and encouragement of patently illegal acts, which create safety hazards, and are obviously intended to bully, harass, and threaten. “
Mustang Bobby
I’m wondering how long it will take one of these guys to file a lawsuit when the manufacturer voids their warranty for screwing around with the emission controls. Or files a claim through Obamacare for their asthma meds.
ThresherK
Anyone remember the “EPA is going to ban your cookout” crap from the ’90s?
I sorta remember it as being pre-internet–but distinctly in Clinton’s term–and pre-Fox News. So cites may be hard to sift through, as there’s a gazillion returns for “EPA ban freedom” out there.
J R in WV
A properly operating diesel engine with no exhaust gas control equipment will generate quite a bit of smoke at some speeds or operation. Look at machinery on a construction site.
Remember back when muscle cars were popular? Teenagers would put Glas-Paks on them, instead of a real muffler, to make a better V-8 sound, and produce some small percentage of increased power.
This is the same thing. Removing the soot filter from the exhaust system of a diesel makes a little bit more power, and allows black smoke to escape. The only trick is that by changing the exhaust control system, you void the warranty and commit an environmental crime with fines starting at $10,000 a pop.
This wasn’t so much the case back in the days of Glas-Paks. Engine warranties weren’t worth much, and the fine was $49 for excessive noise.
Of course we hadn’t invented Global Climate Change yet in 1965. But we were working hard on it.
Cervantes
@ThresherK: Yes.
From the Sierra Club Bulletin (May/June 1997):
Seanly
@PIGL:
Yeah, I’m of the same mind. I’m pretty sure there will be a big die-off – if not in my lifetime, then it’ll be in the lifetime of my nephews. It won’t be all fun & games like the Fallout video games…
Gravenstone
Way late to a dead thread, but a 12 ga. slug to the engine block will stop these fuckers cold dead. Go ahead and “roll coal”, pricks. Have fun replacing your engines every time you piss the wrong person off.
Jebediah, RBG
@Gravenstone:
“Fuck! I accidentally dropped a bunch of wet, quick-cure cement down your stacks! Sorry, bro!”