Trucks modified to spew exhaust, make political statement

Michael Allan McCrae | July 6, 2014 | 10:38 pm Energy Coal 

Some large vehicle owners eager to make a political statement about all things green are pushing more smoke out of their engines.

David Weigel at Slate covers the rise of the protest movement. Diesel engines can be modified to force more fuel through the engine, which emits more black smoke. It is an old practice done for fun and aesthetics, but Weigel tracks how the practice came to represent a political statement and a meme: #rollingcoal.

“Rolling coal” is not new. It grew out of the modifications people would do on their vehicles for truck pulls. It’s just only recently entered the online culture wars. I’d seen the memes and a couple of the trucks. But I hadn’t seen the left reply until this month, when Vocativ ran an expose of “pollution porn for dudes with pickup trucks.” Progressives reacted with disbelief to Facebook communities like “Rollin’ COAL” and (naturally) “Prius Repellent,” and to the sheer number of Instagram and Tumblr entries that recorded this stuff.

 

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9 Comments

  • Alex

    Too much money, with too little education…. Usually equates to the extravagant and arrogant… Sometimes I really think America deserves to drown in her own childish selfishness..

  • Scott Rozell

    All these guys are going to do is get a federal mandate to have your diesel truck tested for emissions each year and any truck that is modified will be subject to fines and failure will get a fine and sidelined until an approved garage performs service that will be expensive. Knock it off morons. Clean diesel benefits all of us. I drive a 2012 RAM 2500 with a Cummins and it’s probably cleaner than a gas engine. We don’t need laws encouraged by your acts to make it hard to buy or own a diesel vehicle.

  • Sheik_Ya_Booti

    Since the facts don`t seem to matter to these folks, I recommend that [when caught] they should be forced to put their face above the exhaust for at least one minute.

  • Mike Failla

    Ill conceived idea. Bad plan all around. Will produce the opposite of what you would and do want!

  • MPT

    Yep, more money than brains. You can’t cure stupid!

  • Guest

    The only statement being made is that these people are idiots.

  • Francisco Negrao

    I thought this was about mining, not about sick people.

  • mar

    Not that I condom modifying an engine to pollute more but just why would you call the greens progressive?? or think that they are progressive?? Lots of people see them as very regressive and narrow minded.

  • Rodger Dodger

    Lot of leftists posting here, it would appear.
    These guys are doing this as a statement to Prius-driving, Obama-voting, leftist wankers……..telling them to basically STICK IT IN YOUR BUTTS with your environmental fetish(s).
    Is it dumb….? Yeah, probably.
    Is it legal……? Yes it is.
    Does it really pizz off the tree-hugging liberal progressives………? SURE DOES.
    That’s the point, and why it’s done.
    Hey, it’s a free country, right….?
    Perhaps Americans should mind their own business more.

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