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news
Police tape (CC licensed by freefotouk on Flickr)Pick-up truck driver, 16, crashes into six cyclists while blowing exhaust fumes at them
Six cyclists near Houston, Texas were injured, with two of them airlifted to hospital after a 16 year old driving a pick-up truck crashed into a group of six riders on Saturday while deliberately blowing exhaust smoke at them.
The practice, which has its origins in truck racing, is known as “rolling coal,” and one eyewitness to Saturday morning’s incident said he himself had been targeted by another driver moments beforehand.
He was one of what was described as a large group of cyclists who out on a ride to train for Ironman Texas, and revealed that he too had almost been struck by a driver during the incident on old Highway 290 close to Waller, which lies around 10 kilometres northwest of Houston.
“This truck, swerved into my lane, he said. “It got within feet on me, then accelerated to blow exhaust on me.”
Describing the crash, , “The reason he couldn’t stop is because he was accelerating to blow more diesel fuel on these cyclists,” Ferrell told FOX 26. “He ended up hitting three people before his brakes even started.
“There was no reason for this to happen,” said Ferrell. “It wasn’t like he was on his phone.”
He said that the driver “definitely meant to try and scare these people,” or to “intimidate them in some way,” and that the motorists then “made a mistake and ran them over.”
Ferrell said: “I heard a lot of crunching. I heard brakes. Tires screeching. I thought someone was dead," added Ferrell. He had been riding with the group on Saturday.”
“Rolling coal” involves drivers modifying their vehicles with aftermarket parts to get around pollution control systems, enabling them to produce massive clouds of black fumes, with typical targets including cyclists, pedestrians and drivers of electric vehicles.
A number of articles published online place it as part of the culture wars in the US, with some drivers choosing to modify their vehicles in this way as a means of expressing their views over measures aimed at protecting the environment, such as limiting or reducing vehicle omissions.
The US Environmental Protection Agency said in 2014 that the practice contravened the practice was Clean Air Act which prohibits the manufacturing, sale, and installation “of a part for a motor vehicle that bypasses, defeats, or renders inoperative any emission control device.”
It also “prohibits anyone from tampering with an emission control device on a motor vehicle by removing it or making it inoperable prior to or after the sale or delivery to the buyer.”
Police interviewed the driver at the scene of Saturday’s incident, but no arrest appears to have been made to date as investigations continue.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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20 comments
I never cease to be amazed at what some people do to get their kicks. How close to being brain dead do you have to be to find blowing exhaust fumes at someone fun?
Everything about this article is sickening. What a nasty bunch of cunts some people are.
In 2008 I cycled across Canada with a mate and several times we had guys in pickups slow down next to us only to take off leaving us in a big cloud of diesel exhaust. It was a year or two later that I read that it was called rolling coal and was practiced a lot in the US, particularly in red neck states. It's annoying but not as dangerous as close passes, of which we had a few.
Perhaps not as dangerous, but demonstrating the oh so fragile egos of drivers, to whom the threat of someone not using an internal combustion engine for travelling is something they have to respond to. What with cyclists being covered in hot chocolate and lucozade, I'm beginning to despair of the human race and its suicidal plummet to extinction.
Nah, not humans. Just motorists....
Only joking, I'm a keen motorist myself....
Me too. I also wonder if drivers will get worse when they get an electric version of their beloved Audi/BMW/Merc. I can see the greater acceleration enabling a number of drivers to take even bigger risks when overtaking.
When the electric Hummer comes out, it's going to dominate the "car crashes into building" thread over on the forum.
The latest UK DashCams has an Electric car crashing into a Jag at an Island. The acceleration from the Tesla actually makes the video seem sped up but obviosuly the Tesla driver and the jag misjudged how fast he would get from one section to the next.
I don't look forward to being on traffic islands with those accelerations when cycling. It is bad enough now most cars with smaller engines have Turbos.
I think the insane acceleration available to electric cars will need to be capped. The law looks only at speed, but the rate at which speed increases is just as much of an issue, particularly at roundabouts.
It would be interesting to follow up on this as it appears there are quite a few charges that can be brought to the person in the truck. As mentioned fiddling with the exhaust, intention to endanger the lives of others etc etc obviously being stupid should be a crime but the americans wouldn't be able to build prisons fast enough!
You underestimate the entrepreneurial spirit of the USA's private prison operators.
US has the most imprisoned population in the world both in terms of per capita and absolute numbers - they've got over 2m in prison.
That's a lot of people that can't vote
This is true. Under Clinton's administration we saw the 3 strikes [and you're out] legislation brought in (although these are really old rules dusted off and made more aggressive). Conviction of 3 felonies resulting in life or long sentences. It was also much more difficult to sentence to non-prison schemes . This was the democrats attempt to try and steal some ground from the republicans; that of "tough on crime", particularly violent crime.
This of course led to perverse outcomes such as people in effect being given life for petty theft, possession etc. The policy also disproportionately affected POC, and those in poverty, as they were far more likely to get investigated, caught, charged and convicted than richer whiter folks. In addition, plea bargaining has a well-documented effect on miscarriages of justice, again affecting more vulnerable groups who are more likely to have previously pleaded guilty to crimes that they did not commit.
Since the nineties the prison population in the US has more than doubled - 770000 in 1990.
Personally, I'm all in favour of more vehicle omissions.
No arrest?
It's Texas. They're trying to figure out what medal he should be awarded.
I'm pretty sure Texas had a ban on Electric cars being sold within the state a few years ago (Probably still ongoing as well). You had to purchase from out of state and pick it up at the state lines.
This is not true. Texas (like many U.S. states) does require that cars be sold through dealerships. Tesla doesn't have dealerships—it has showrooms where you can look at a car, but can't drive one off the lot. You'd order one online and it would be delivered to your door.
Texas' state government has gone out of its way to penalize renewable energy, even though it's home to enormous wind farms.
If he'd been driving a woman to an abortion clinic, they could have shot him and collected the $10,000 bounty, but obviously, deliberately knocking down cyclists isn't in the same category.