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Comment by binarymax | Hacker News Reader

IMO the people who roll coal should be put in jail, but this is a good start.

We need to hit the enablers and the users of these horrible machines.

First time I came across the term "roll coal" and thought it was a mining-related term or something, but the reality is much, much worse:

> Rolling (or "rollin'") coal is the practice of modifying a diesel engine to emit large amounts of black or grey sooty exhaust fumes—diesel fuel that has not undergone complete combustion.

> Rolling coal is a form of anti-environmentalism. Such modifications may include the intentional removal of the particulate filter. Practitioners often additionally modify their vehicles by installing smoke switches, large exhausts, and smoke stacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal

This must already be illegal right? Or can you willingly increase your pollution, harm the environment and not break any laws?

It’s completely illegal but the people who do it are conservative white men, so the police almost universally look the other way (it’s extremely common to see the trucks equipped with this also have blue lives matter or fraternal order of police stickers, those thin blue line flags the fascists like, etc.). You can see them intentionally blast cyclists, pedestrians, Prius drivers, etc. so it really should be treated as assault since there’s both premeditation and deliberate targeting.

What really needs to happen is nailing the shops which do these modifications. Individual drivers are hard to track down but if it involved your business going bankrupt they’d decide it’s not worth it very quickly.

> What really needs to happen is nailing the shops which do these modifications. Individual drivers are hard to track down but if it involved your business going bankrupt they’d decide it’s not worth it very quickly.

Weaponize CAF against them. You get caught coal rolling, the cops get to take your truck. Same thing against the shops doing the installations -- you get caught installing these devices, your entire business is immediately seized.

>You get caught coal rolling, the cops get to take your truck.

This would of course be bad for the owners of shops who...also service the town's police vehicles. I know at least one shop owner who would have a free hand in town to burn literal peat in his truck, and none of the cops would stop him if they liked riding in their Tahoes.

Yeah, I think this would need to be some kind of state or federal level program, with either an anonymous bounty or a reduction on your own legal consequences - that way each guy getting busted would have a financial incentive to identify who made the mods.

That's pretty extreme. Surely fines seem far more appropriate.

Removing emissions control equipment from a modern diesel is not exactly like having to take apart the entire engine. It's simpler than you might think.

Like many vehicle issues, it’s illegal most places but not enforced.

Worse than even what you quoted, many people "roll coal" specifically to blast peds, cyclists, Prius drivers, etc with exhaust fumes.

> Worse than even what you quoted, many people "roll coal" specifically to blast peds, cyclists, Prius drivers, etc with exhaust fumes.

Are you saying they are using smoke signals to express a divergence in political opinions?

Then I'd say is some kind of speech, and therefore should be protected.

Regulating manufacturing is one thing, but using laws against people using what they have bought to do what they want with it is where I draw the line.

Another example is WIFI firmwares: regulate companies as much as you like, but I want to modify my devices as much as I want to operate in the unregulated spectrum.

> Then I'd say is some kind of speech, and therefore should be protected.

Speech causing immediate harm to others is explicitly not protected. If you want to interpret rolling coal as political speech, directing it at pedestrians/cyclists et al is clearly not a protected form of it.

Unlike screaming fire in a crowded theater, it's not causing immediate harm: maybe it's causing long term harm, but that's not enough to remove the free speech protection.

> Unlike screaming fire in a crowded theater, it's not causing immediate harm: maybe it's causing long term, but that's not enough to remove the free speech protection.

It's ok to be wrong.

You think literally blasting someone in the face with dangerous smoke is "protected speech"? Potentially blinding someone by putting them into a thick cloud of smoke is "protected speech"?

I can't tell if your comment is a parody, or if the "free speech absolutists" have really gotten this ridiculous.

> I can't tell if your comment is a parody, or if the "free speech absolutists" have really gotten this ridiculous.

Yes, I believe in free speech. If you believe this is ridiculous, it's on you.

> You think literally blasting someone in the face with dangerous smoke ... Potentially blinding someone ...

Now you are being ridiculous: the "danger" of this smoke is very relative: yes, particulates can be hazardous to health, but only in the long run. It's not like throwing acid at someone: it can't cause blindness!

This smoke may only reduce visibility a little and very temporarily unless it's done in a tunnel.

I think it's not a nice thing to do (pollution etc), but I still prefer having laws protecting important concepts like free speech, even if these laws also let people do things I don't like: the concepts these laws protect are more important that the consequences of a few isolated individual actions.

Also, intention matters: if the person doing that is aiming at cyclist faces or focusing on tunnels to risk causing accidents, it's very different from sending smoke towards the open sky and away from anyone: one is malicious and illegal, the other is expressing a political opinion and may be protected.

It's ok to dislike some political opinions, but it's not ok to try to regulate speech with the power of law.

> include the intentional removal of the particulate filter

People who think this is a problem should read the instructions for cleaning one.

> anti-environmentalism

those poor souls, I hope they’ll be able to fix whatever underlying issue is making them feel like that’s an appropriate thing to do.

It’s illegal in some states, but needs to be made a federal crime.

It is a federal crime to tamper with emissions systems I believe.

Right, but it isn't enforced. There are a couple exceptions, but for the most part nobody with power to enforce the law will think about it.

Unfortunately, true. They have gone after the big suppliers and shops though, and that seems to have put a damper on it, if only a little.

First time I encountered someone rolling coal was when I was driving next to one in my Miata. I didn’t really know what was going on and thought he had an engine problem or something. I made sure to stay away from him since I was in a Miata with the roof down and didn’t want to breathe the fumes. But the guy in the truck seemed to try and stay close to me. I thought I was probably imagining things. But I later came across a post somewhere that people who roll coal sometimes target specific cars (like Miatas). Not sure why.

Because their parents didn’t love them enough.

How are you going to get the cops to arrest their own people?

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