Dashcam captures instant karma moment for obnoxious truck driver: ‘I don’t know who guys like this are trying to impress’
If you’ve ever been stuck behind a pickup truck that’s puffed out a huge cloud of black smoke, it’s likely you’ve been coal-rolled.
The practice, which sees vehicle owners modify their engines to release the sooty billow, is often used as a protest against electric car drivers or anyone who is demonstrating even the slightest bit of concern for the environment.
It’s nothing new, with video footage from 2012 showing one driver of a 12-volt Cummins pickup creating the dark cloud just before passing an intersection.
What they surely didn’t anticipate, though, was that two police officers on horseback were not far behind, and they swiftly arrived by the vehicle’s side to request the driver pull over.
It’s a little bit of karmic retribution for an act that sends particulate matter into the atmosphere, which can lead to respiratory illnesses for anyone in the vicinity who inhales the unnecessary smoke pollution.
And folks on Reddit were baffled as to why anyone would think rolling coal is a good idea.
“To be honest, I don’t know who guys like this are trying to impress,” said one commenter.
“How pathetic of a person do you need to be to get pissed off at electric cars for threatening internal combustion engines?” added another, observing how some drivers do it in the presence of clean electric vehicles that produce zero pollution while out on the road.
It was almost like a scene from a movie, with the two cops emerging from the cloud of smoke to deliver some justice.
While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said tampering with engines to produce particulate matter is illegal since it violates the Clean Air Act, the practice or the modification of vehicles to do so isn’t necessarily enforced in every state.
According to Business Insider, it is banned in Maine, Utah, New Jersey, Maryland, Colorado, and Connecticut, but it is not illegal in Texas, for example.
The United States Department of Justice recently filed a lawsuit against eBay for selling illegal devices that make the polluting modification possible.
The EPA noted that tampering with a vehicle’s engine in such a way can release hundreds to thousands of times more pollution than it would without the modification.
“A ‘full delete’ of the emission controls on a modern heavy-duty diesel pickup truck can cause it to emit as much harmful pollution as 300 trucks with fully functioning emissions controls,” the EPA said.
Furthermore, it added that the pollution from the activity can lead to premature death for people with pre-existing conditions like heart or lung disease.
Thankfully, this driver at least got a little comeuppance.
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