The “Coal Rolling” and “ICE-ing” Menace and What You Can do to Prevent It and Abate It

ANALYSIS AND OPINION: There have been incidents across the country lately that have become more noticeable and reportable to both news agencies and the police. “Coal Rolling” and “ICE-ing” are suppose to be acts of protest against emissions policies but they are really nothing more than acts of cowardliness by ignoramuses. Empower rather than arm yourself by doing these ten things to stop these shameful people.

The act “Coal Rolling” and “ICE-ing” is bullying and intimidating no doubt as if the predators were a burning cross on a front lawn, if not as deadly as of yet, thank goodness. “Coal Rolling” is the act of revving up a diesel motor to create torque, a legitimate act under normal circumstances turn illicit when doing it to cause harm to another fellow American. We’re supposed to be on the same side, remember? “ICE-ing” is its acronym, Internal Combustion Engine-“ing” by using a gas motor to prove one’s superiority over green technology, apparently and supposedly. But by the time the predators are finished with their juvenile acts ranging from entering a premise or property to conduct an illegal act which is trespassing; disorderly conduct by intentionally blocking a public pathway, or illegally parking in front of a public charging station; creating an unnecessary amount of vehicular exhaust smoke to pollute the air; to reckless endangerment on public roads, or vehicular battery and assault with a deadly weapon by forcing people off the road with smoke or with a vehicle, you have enough penal law and local ordinance offenses to put the perpetrators in jail. Very much like the bullies are doing, we too need to organize and coordinate ourselves to inform, educate, empower, and convey a message we won’t tolerate such behavior and will fight back by upholding the rule of law:

• “Coal Rolling” and “ICE-ing” is an act of protesting against emissions policies. Some say it’s an act of bullying terrorism.
• Regardless of how defined it can be a potentially deadly exchange of high stakes brinkmanship in which if either side does not exercise restraint, it can lead to felony charges, injury, even death.
• It’s manifested by blocking public charging stations with some kind of diesel vehicle usually a pickup truck, or revving the accelerator to produce an absurd amount of diesel exhaust to drown an electric or hybrid vehicle owner or bicyclist with such smoke they cannot see or breathe for a few seconds or minutes.
• This kind of disorientation by diesel plume if prolonged can lead to an accident.
• Prosecutors can charge the diesel offender with willful intent if such owner or bicyclist is killed or injured.
• But the way “Coal Rolling” is done in these acts against green car owners and bicyclist is something else other than the true sense of “Coal Rolling” and illegal to do anywhere.
• “Coal Rolling” is technically legal in some states as logically and mechanically that’s how a Diesel engine is able to augment power to obtain torque. It is widely used legally at places such as state fairs, and there’s nothing wrong with this, this is what diesel trucks do and why we build them.
• It becomes illegal to do, even if not specified by statute, when you use it as a tool to manifest willful intent or recklessness of a subsequent crime: if you blind and choke someone that they become disoriented and get into a accident and die, a prosecutor regardless of political affiliation will charge you, the “Coal Roller,” with homicide. Your culpable mental state was reckless or intent, and the m.o. was rolling coal.
• This goes beyond politics: if you love and respect your country and its laws, you are committing an oxymoron by exhibiting such behavior as “Coal Rolling.”
• Some states like New Jersey are considering specific laws prohibiting such acts.

Politics and steroided internet frenzy are the recipe for a scenario where you, the electric car owner rolls up onto a public charging station to find diesel pickup trucks blocking the stations, and at times young men who apparently are the owners of these trucks standing around either responsible for the behavior, or witnessing this kind of incident, gauging for a reaction. They’re looking for trouble and waiting to see if you’re it.

Don’t be baited. They may look intimidating but once they’re in handcuffs they’re no different than a bunch of cry babies, just like the old school mobsters, trust me on this. And where there is weakness in our humanity we need to arise to the occasion with our vehicles to let it be known we won’t stand for this kind of behavior and we need to gather our resolve and be strong.

So based on my observations and experiences as a professional security officer and former LEO, here’s a list of ten things you can do right now to empower yourselves to avoid confrontation and uphold the rule of law, starting with things you can do to avoid public charging where these incidents occur:

1. Charge at home or at the office. By doing this you entirely avoid this situation from happening to begin with, at least at the charging stations where most of these things occur. If you are driving locally with a BEV with decent range or have a hybrid PHEV, frankly, there’s no excuse and no reason why you can’t charge at home or the office, especially if you have a PHEV. Don’t forget to plug in at a safe zone so you won’t have to run into these diesel bullies. If you run out of range as a PHEV owner, you’ll be forgiven starting with me, to sputter home on gas. Besides, PHEVs eventually soon will become completely incompatible with public mega supercharging. The smaller the battery, the hotter it gets, especially if you mega supercharge. This is not my opinion, this is FACT. The batteries are now way too small and get way too hot as they are from use, they now have become way too dangerous to public mega supercharge in 5-10 minutes. You need to anticipate this if you plan on keeping your older BEV or PHEV for a while. The concept of public mega supercharging a PHEV is becoming a concept past, and manufacturers are not upgrading a tiny battery or its circuitry so you can mega supercharge, it’s too expensive , impractical, and too dangerous. Go home or carry a spare portable battery pack.

2. Use open air public charging stations. Using enclosed stations inside unknown or remote locale garages is inviting trouble up to assault, rape, and robberies to begin with, a haven for any kind of bully. Unless at home or the office where you might feel more comfortable charging, if you need to public charge, try to use an open air public charging station where you’ll be more noticed by witnesses and where a cry for help is more likely to be heard. Just make sure witnesses are around.

3. Be judicious during the time of day. Looking at these videos and pictures of these diesel trucks, I’m looking for patterns. I see a lot of them look late model, some of them are older models but customized and very well taken cared of, a lot of them apparently used for work in the trades, some of them are tandem axle and Ram Cummins Turbo Diesels, high end expensive equipment, that you know a lot of these guys have bank notes on them or have to spend a lot of money refueling them, as diesel fuel costs more. That means unless they’re somewhere in default from not making car payments, these guys have jobs. Plan accordingly. I doubt these guys will be in the mood for a “Coal Rolling” interlude at lunch or rush hour. After dinner or weekends is asking for trouble. Be smart for yourselves.

4. Waiting on line for a charger v. Making an appointment for one. This is where you need to use discretion and exercise care. By making an appointment depending on the location you’ll get in and out more quickly. On the other hand there’s nothing that beats a crowd, especially when the group on your side is kindred spirit.

5. The more the merrier. Speaking of a crowd, bring a companion or another EV owner with their car with yours. Grab a bunch of friends in a carload to go with you. Bullies like it when you show up alone. It makes it easier to prey on you especially if you are a female. Females are not impressed with “Coal Rolling.” This is a male pickup truck thing. This is where I need you females out there to get onboard with me and keep your men, whether it’s your man, or your brother, and their male friends, to keep them in check and get on their cases. There’s nothing cool about this. So the larger the counterinsurgency of any kind against them, the greater the chance of deterrence or resistance. If you are a female there isn’t a greater threat to a bully than a car load of ladies that mean business. For the police who show up at the scene, it makes your female case just that more compelling and believable, especially if some of you are mothers. Who could ever accuse a mother of lying or provoking except in self defense? It goes to that maternal “defend your offspring” instinct thing that the cops will plausibly understand.

6. Call the public and private fuzz. Call 911 at ANY sign of trouble. Tell them come NOW. If they don’t, call them right back. If not, call the desk officer at the station house and tell the boss to get his cops’ asses moving (but say it more nicely please)! Before anything, call first if you roll up and there’s diesel trucks standing by, even if they’re not blocking or doing anything. They’re waiting around for trouble. They might be waiting for you. After the police, call the security of the property you’re situated, whether it be campus police, mall, building, or property security, residential retirement home security, etc. If you tell security you called the police, security will also respond. Part of the issue apparently from this video, is the lack of interestest or indifference from the police as they too have had black plumes of smoke blown in their face. The message to them and from the “coal rollers” seems to be one of winking and tolerance. We cannot allow cops to be disrespected like this. If they do it to them, where do the rest of us stand? I don’t know about the line cops, but for the cop bosses, the message should be clear with the addition of a Coal Rolling Task Force to start ticketing, towing, and arresting. Vehicles also need inspection as well:

7. Call the tow company. Usually there are signs posted around supercharging stations that indicate any illegal parkers will be towed. After you get names to place the blames from both the police and security, call the tow company and get them rolling with the names of police and security you already have. And get their name too. You have a towing condition in front of you and there’s no time like now to have the people who’ll make money doing it for you, respond.

8. Lights, camera, action! At the first smell of trouble after calling police, security, and tow, take out the cameras and cell phones to start shooting pictures. Coordinate. One takes still, the other, video. That’ll be your party’s sole responsibility if you bring a group with you to a have at least one movie and one still camera man or woman, each. Make sure to capture faces and license plates. Nothing can be more damning than to have a detective in plain clothes, a uniformed state trooper, a state, county, or city highway patrolman, a sheriff’s deputy, or a police officer show up at a bully’s door with blown up pictures with plates and faces, to at least tell the bully to knock it off first and last warning, or click the bracelets to collar him or them for their “Coal Rolling” misdeeds.

9. Be prepared to follow through. Yeah, I know. It’s a pain in the ass to go an affidavit hearing at a lawyer’s office during a civil petition, a witness box during a grand jury felony investigation, and/or a trial, civil or criminal. But that’s why you’re the first one to jump on the bandwagon to proclaim how great this country is. You want to make a difference? You don’t want these creeps to get away with this do you? This is where I tell people like you to mean what you say and say what you mean. FOLLOW UP. If you don’t follow through the bully will find someone else and get away with it. What’s needed here if they have a job and no criminal record, is a criminal conditional one on probation with at least a community service sentence for an eventual purge of their record at minimum, until they display better behavior. If they’re a frequent flyer, then we need to put them away again. It’s really up to you. It’s up to all of us. Do the right thing.

10. Attention Tesla, Rivian, Bollinger, and other high end electric pickup owners. I don’t envy you. Shakespeare: “heavy is the head who wears the crown.” You are pickup trucks’ first early adopters, and as leaders the burdens come with all of that. Be careful, but be responsible, You’re setting a example for us all. Don’t be baited by weaklings. I’m assuming this article will have a sense of timelessness to it to be installed in my archives with Torque News. So I’m writing and speaking as I look toward the future in as little as a year from now when we start seeing Rivians and Bollingers out in the wild, Tesla U’s a year later. These trucks in many ways are no different in their dynamics with this situation than Rolls Royce owners have with their cars in their dynamic ironically. I often like to say that there are certain places one should never drive a Rolls Royce to, regardless of vintage, especially if the owner is looking for a bargain. High end electric pickup truck owners should apply that dynamic to this situation appropriately. I would cringe to pull up into a bar the next three years or so driving a Rivian in an ocean of Cummins Diesels parked outside. Last call is asking for trouble. Be careful driving in hardcore died into the cloth red states as a native or as a drive or fly over or through driver destined for elsewhere, that until full electric pickup integration and saturation, you are a sitting duck even when rolling. Be careful.

And finally, to my “Coal Rolling” American brethren, I ask you this: has it ever occurred to you that some of the ones you “Coal Roll” might be a relative of a friend, or a loved one, a work colleague, someone who know or care for, that you may not be thinking when you do such a thing? They say every American, regardless of race or ethnicity, is a 10th cousin, and we’re all supposed to be on the same side but with a few differences in opinions about certain things, and in the scheme of things, opinions that really don’t matter, as we’re supposed to love one another. When can we start?

Don’t be fooled. “Coal Rolling” is not about emissions or excessive government regulations impinging on individual rights. If you think it is, then why haven’t you been voting or been active constructively to counter its existence? That is not being civic minded to be no different than the “Coal Rollers”. “Coal Rolling” is not even about climate change or Big Oil trying to stop BEV proliferation.

“Coal Rolling” is about the rule of law. If you respect your country, if you stand up to take your hat off with the presentation of the colors and the anthem, if you respect our heroes who are our military and first responders, believe in the causes and values we hold dear, then you should respect the laws we abide by and the fellow citizens we live with that follow them too. This is about civility and law and nothing else.

Technology is an amazing thing. It has become so vast, so complex, and so swift in its invention then proliferation it is now capable of taking care of itself. But the technology doesn’t own us, we own the technology. We shouldn’t be afraid of it. That’s also what “Coal Rolling” is about. It is about fear of technology and it’s integration into our lives. If we are truly the masters of our universe then we should have nothing to fear but ourselves.

The irony is that the same demographic that sits in front of those superchargers thinking they’re sending a message, are the same ones who’ll be the first ones trading in their Cummins for a Rivian or Bollinger, even a Tesla pickup when they find out how much power, horsepower, torque, improved driving dynamics with the battery tray, and low costs are to operate, mark my words.

America is a sordid but still a beautiful thing. God bless it and us all . . .

Photos and videos pulled and screenshotted from YouTube via Badass Diesels and TwistedDiesels Channels, GM utility truck and gold Ford pickup at separate Tesla stations via Reddit, Ford green pickup via “Tesla Owner” on Twitter, and all under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, and news reporting.

I am so grateful that my publisher allows me the generous privilege within reason to express my opinions about matters related to the auto industry. I try to be judicious and respectful about the content. I ask you do the same in the comments section. And please keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are solely mine, and not those of Hareyan Publishing or its employees, including my staff colleagues.

Al Castro is a security expert and a retired LEO who is a staff and opinion piece writer on electric and autonomous vehicles for Torque News.

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