Coal Rollers - Toxic Manbaby Love

[Metahive]

http://www.vocativ.com/culture/society/ ... llin-coal/

Diesel drivers in rural America have been modifying their trucks to spew out black soot, then posting pics to the Internet. They hate you and your Prius

In small towns across America, manly men are customizing their jacked-up diesel trucks to intentionally emit giant plumes of toxic smoke every time they rev their engines. They call it “rollin’ coal,” and it’s something they do for fun.

An entire subculture has emerged on the Internet surrounding this soot-spewing pastime—where self-declared rednecks gather on Facebook pages (16,000 collective followers) Tumblers and Instagram (156,714 posts) to share photos and videos of their Dodge Rams and GM Silverados purposefully poisoning the sky. As one of their memes reads: “Roll, roll, rollin’ coal, let the hybrid see. A big black cloud. Exhaust that’s loud. Watch the city boy flee.”

Of course, there are things about diesel lovers and their trucks that the rest of us weren’t meant to understand. Like how the guttural noise of a grumbling engine sounds like music when the muffler is removed. Or how the higher the lift and the bigger the tires—the better the man. As Robbie, a 25-year-old mechanic at a diesel garage in South Carolina, puts it, “Your truck is not just something to get you from point A to point B. It’s who you are.” In other words, mushrooming clouds of diesel exhaust are just another way to show off your manhood.

Robbie has been rollin’ coal since he got his first truck 12 years ago, but he admits the allure is “kind of hard to put words on.” “It’s just fun,” he says. “Just driving and blowing smoke and having a good time.”[...]

You know you've hit rock bottom once you've reached the level of Captain Planet Villainy.

Remember when we could laugh at all this naive environmentalism that got spewed by the truckload in the 90s? Bleugh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6uaDMhzij8

[mr friendly guy]

Aside from being macho, the rollin’ coal culture is also a renegade one. Kids make a point of blowing smoke back at pedestrians, in addition to cop cars and rice burners (Japanese-made sedans), which can make it dangerously difficult to see out of the windshield. Diesel soot can also be a great road rage weapon should some wimpy looking Honda Civic ever piss you off. “If someone makes you mad, you can just roll coal, and it makes you feel better sometimes,” says Ryan, a high school senior who works at the diesel garage with Robbie. “The other day I did it to this kid who was driving a Mustang with his windows down, and it was awesome.”

What a bunch of dicks. These guys need the Captain Planet treatment. The Don Cheadle variety.

[Zaune]

Not even the Captain Picard facepalm can adequately convey my feelings at this point.

[salm]

It´s as unwitty as the "For every animal you don´t eat, I´ll eat three." nonsense.

[Darth Tanner]

Stupid question but does America not have emission standards? in the UK these vehicles would fail their annual MOT inspection and be declared unroad worthy.

Plus would this reduce their MPG by a comical degree? Although I do realise most Americans already have pretty terrible MPG by civilized standards.

[Lagmonster]

I remember seeing articles about this; apparently there's video around of these coal-rollers purposely 'smogging' small, fuel-efficient cars, with special emphasis on obscuring the vision or offending the senses of Prius drivers.

[Broomstick]

Stupid question but does America not have emission standards?

Yes, we've had them for decades. But flouting the rules is apparently another sign of manliness.

Either these guys don't bother keeping their paperwork/plates/emissions/whatever updated and, due to being in a rural area, simply aren't caught often, or else they fix everything up, pass their emissions tests, then re-modify to blow smoke. 30 years ago I knew people living in the city of Chicago who would deal with the emissions stuff then go in and delibrately disable/remove things like the catalytic converter and such because "that emissions control shit fucks up your gas mileage" and/or is some communist plot or something. They'd keep the parts around so when they got their next notice for emissions testing they'd put all that back in, get the test, then take it all out again.

Plus would this reduce their MPG by a comical degree? Although I do realise most Americans already have pretty terrible MPG by civilized standards.

No clue, they don't care, and actually some of us do purchase vehicles with decent mileage, like my Echo which gets 40-50 miles per gallon depending on road conditions and type of driving. The only with better mileage is a hybrid.

Of course, these yahoos would hate my car because the company that made it is Japanese - nevermind that the same company employs lots of Americans in their North American operations. Logical reasoning is not strong with this crowd.

[Tsyroc]

Stupid question but does America not have emission standards? in the UK these vehicles would fail their annual MOT inspection and be declared unroad worthy.

Plus would this reduce their MPG by a comical degree? Although I do realise most Americans already have pretty terrible MPG by civilized standards.

Where I live in Arizona I have to get my truck tested every year. If it doesn't pass I have to get it fixed before I can renew the registration and keep it licensed. I think this mostly applies to people who live in, or commute a certain number of times per year to Tucson and/or Phoenix. The much more sparsely populated parts of the state don't have to get their vehicles tested.

Vehicles built before, I think 1962, don't have to get tested. Newer vehicles only have to get tested every 2 years. Plus it's easier for them to get tested since the testing station can
plug into the computers of newer computers during the test.

The police can and will pull over vehicles that are smoking too much. I think there has even been programs who encourage people to report smoking vehicles.

[Elheru Aran]

Urban areas will almost always have more stringent regulations on emissions than rural. Atlanta and the surrounding counties require all cars made after, I think it's 1986, to take the test each year. Like Tsyroc, you fail, you have to fix it before you can get a new sticker for the year.

Where my parents live, however, in the country-- nope. Just show up to the tag office, it doesn't matter if you're smoking enough to hide the Nimitz. There is an obvious correlation between the country and rednecks...

If it's enough smoke to be considered a deliberate nuisance, then most cops will probably pull over the driver and ask them to cut it out. Depending on the cop and the state's regulations, the driver may or may not be ticketed.

[Starglider]

I find it amusing that this is suddenly getting some mainstream media coverage after being a regular interest story in car enthusiast publications for at least the last five years.

The most common modification to achieve this is a button that alters the voltage output from one of the engine management sensors, causing the ECU to temporarily run the engine very rich. As such it doesn't use extra fuel when you aren't pressing the button and doesn't affect smog check (although the filter element is normally removed as well and would have to be temporarily re-inserted). AFAIK the EPA are going after mod manufacturers rather than trying to prosecute individuals, which is more Australia's style.

[Kon_El]

Stupid question but does America not have emission standards? in the UK these vehicles would fail their annual MOT inspection and be declared unroad worthy.

Plus would this reduce their MPG by a comical degree? Although I do realise most Americans already have pretty terrible MPG by civilized standards.

From what I have read about the modification. It involves adding a switch/button that dumps extra fuel into the engine to achieve the effect. As long as it isn't activated the truck runs normal.

[Broomstick]

The EPA is going after manufacturers. It's the local municipalities who are requiring regular testing for licensing and registration of vehicles, and that is to reduce smog and bad air days. By that reasoning yes, it is more important to do regular emissions testing in urban rather than rural areas.

[Block]

Most of the costal states make emissions testing a state requirement associated with renewing your registration.

[Iroscato]

How long, I wonder, before their smoke actually causes the driver of a 'stupid wimpy communist Prius' to panic, lose control and crash the car because he can't see, resulting in either his death or serious injury? Perhaps a few hefty lawsuits and a nice bit of legislation will calm these dick-waving morons down a bit.

[Simon_Jester]

The really interesting bit of psychoanalysis here is that the "coal rollers" seem to think that people drive Priuses (and, presumably, other fuel-efficient cars) because they're afraid to burn gas. Or diesel, or whatever. And that it would somehow offend me, a hypothetical Prius driver,* that someone somewhere else has basically decided to do the equivalent of eating a lot of food that's bad for their digestion and then light their farts.

There's this bizarre tendency to assume that people who act in environmentally friendly ways are doing it because it's personal, that it's some kind of squeamish fear of doing XYZ. Many of us can at least comprehend how it would be 'funny' to do something that shows off how you are not squeamish about a thing others fear.

And yet this entirely misses the point- for the majority of people I know who are even slightly environmentally conscious, it's about objective facts about the world around them, like "if we do X, people get cancer and die, if we do Y, the sea rises to swallow up the land, if we do Z, the crops wither in the fields."

If there were no objective, external consequences to pouring diesel fumes into the air, I wouldn't care about diesel fumes. But the reality is, they're poisonous, and burning too much diesel is bad for American and bad for the planet.

And yet somehow this redneck gets it into his head that I think this because I am squeamish, somehow wimpy and inferior, and decides to show off how much manlier he is, how free of squeamishness he is, by deliberately burning too much diesel.

Talk about chopping off your nose to spite your face.
____________________

*I don't actually drive one, hence the 'hypothetical'

[Wing Commander MAD]

Most of the costal states make emissions testing a state requirement associated with renewing your registration.

Same in PA, once a year you have to get the vehicle inspected for safety*, which includes an emissions test. Having invalid stickers, or no stickers results in a fine.

Simon, don't forget about the simple economics of it either. I never could understand the idea of wanting a less fuel efficient vehicle. They must love spending money they don't need to...

Note *: I believe the emissions portion of the test is a county level requirement for passing the safety inspection on vehicles made after 1975. Whether there are any counties that still don't have emission standards I couldn't say. Something else to keep in mind is that if you don't take the vehicle on public land I don't believe you have to have any from of certification for it or the driver.

[Raw Shark]

Simon, don't forget about the simple economics of it either. I never could understand the idea of wanting a less fuel efficient vehicle. They must love spending money they don't need to...

Spending money you don't need to is another classic dick-waving technique, y'know.

[Sea Skimmer]

[
Same in PA, once a year you have to get the vehicle inspected for safety*, which includes an emissions test. Having invalid stickers, or no stickers results in a fine.

PA though, after forcing all the shops in the state to pay 250,000 dollars apiece for emissions testing dyno equipment in the early 1990s, now only requires an electronic OBD2 scan for anything that has it, which all vehicles past the mid 1990s. All that scan does it look for trouble codes thrown out by malfunctions in emission control gear and the O2 sensors, it doesn't actually have any capability to test the emissions. Generally if OBD2 says its okay, it is, but not always. Suffice to say the car repair industry was furious at the tailpipe test requirement precisely because they predicted that it wouldn't stick long enough to ever pay off the machines. They were absurdly right. Some rural counties also dont even have the OBD2 scan requirement and never had the tail sniffer, but it isn't many .

Only New York, New Jersey and a couple other far north eastern US states require tail sniffing for all vehicles registered for daily driving, and only about half of all states require any sort of test. Even California does not require testing all vehicles. Course sixteen or seventeen US states IIRC require no form of vehicle inspection what so ever, ever. Drive whatever junk you want until it explodes.

[LadyTevar]

As a Prius owner, I have yet to have any of the WV Rednecks 'roll coal' in my way. Some of that might be because I'm a 'city dweller', and there's not that many rollin' coal here. When I am up the mountain, it's more important to watch the curves than worry about smoking anyone out. Especially the little Prius that just passed you in the curve and is already vanishing round the next, paying taxes on both sides of the road.

[Borgholio]

I drive a Prius. I do it not because I want to feel superior, but because I personally feel good being able to have a two-hour round trip daily commute and do it on under 2 gallons of gas...the amount one of these trucks would burn just getting out of city limits. It feels good saving money and saving the environment. My wife and I joke that the higher the truck, the smaller the dick is of the driver. So whenever a guy with a vagina drives by hauling ass with his 4-foot lift, snow tires, and Yosemite Sam mudflaps...I actually pity him, and I wonder how bad is self-esteem is that he has to drive something costing almost as much for gasoline as some people pay for their fucking mortgage.

Since I drive a lot, I have the Highway Patrol on speed dial to report objects in the road and such...and I also have a speed dial to the CA Air Resources board where you can report smokers. Anybody putting out a cloud of smoke gets their license plate reported to the DMV.

[Channel72]

The really interesting bit of psychoanalysis here is that the "coal rollers" seem to think that people drive Priuses (and, presumably, other fuel-efficient cars) because they're afraid to burn gas. Or diesel, or whatever. And that it would somehow offend me, a hypothetical Prius driver,* that someone somewhere else has basically decided to do the equivalent of eating a lot of food that's bad for their digestion and then light their farts.

I think it's more of an overall mocking/confrontational attitude towards things which these sort of people find unmanly - you know, vegetarians, environmentalists, things like that. Everyone knows real men eat steaks while driving gas-guzzling SUVs and getting blow jobs.

Mmmm.... steak

[Borgholio]

real men eat steaks while driving gas-guzzling SUVs and getting blow jobs.

Huh...I'm two out of three. What does that make me?

[Channel72]

I don't know, but if you'll excuse me... I need to go enjoy my Quinoa/Tofu croissant while sipping a nice '97 Nuits Saint Georges Chardonnay and listening to NPR on my iPhone while taking public transit downtown so I can cast my vote for Ralph Nader.

[Borgholio]

I don't know, but if you'll excuse me... I need to go enjoy my Quinoa/Tofu croissant while sipping a nice '97 Nuits Saint Georges Chardonnay and listening to NPR on my iPhone while taking public transit downtown so I can cast my vote for Ralph Nader.

Hippy.

[Sea Skimmer]

Go ahead, throw your vote away!