You change the tune of a diesel engine to dump extra fuel in the cylinders under heavy load so that it doesn’t burn all the way. They also remove particulate filters, modify the exhaust, etc. The result is large black clouds of smog out of the exhaust. People’s Reasons for doing it range from thinking it looks cool to pure anti-environmentalism.
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As expected, it seems the kid might be connected in the county
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What I don’t understand about this case is when the coal rolling was happening. It’s not logical to hit the cyclists from the rear while coal rolling them. Normally they zoom by and hit the gas as they are passing to create the cloud of smoke.
In the past, every time I’ve heard of a group of cyclists getting plowed from behind, it’s been a case of DUI, mental illness, asleep at the wheel, meth, or a combination of several of those things.
This case is just odd or details have not come to light yet.
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The fact the cops didn’t give a shit about the cyclists should tell you anything you need to know about the what happened…
Read the legal representation of the 6 cyclist that i just posted…
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What? You’ve never heard of cyclists being intentionally “brushed back” and the driver misjudging distances? Never heard of distracted drivers using their phones or paying attention to their radios and not the road?
Seems pretty clear this kid was trying to scare the cyclists and things went horribly wrong.
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His “defense” is he was reaching for his cellphone to call his dad…
I’ve been road cycling for 4 decades and I’ve seen/heard about many of these cases but no, I’ve never of a case where a whole group of cyclists was mowed down by someone trying to buzz them and scare them.
There is more to this case that we haven’t heard.
As I read the situation, I think the most likely scenario is that the driver wanted to scare the cyclists, but misjudged the relative speed and collided with them without intending to. The latter doesn’t change that the driver is solely responsible for that.
Even if things went “as intended, I can also imagine being startled by the howling engine, being engulfed in dark smoke (that makes it harder to breathe, too). Even then if one or more of the cyclists had crashed into one another in the peloton as a consequence, this would have been 100 % on the driver.
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Like what?
Some of things I mentioned. There was a witness in the truck with him. He must have a story. Drugs could be involved. All we read is “rolling coal” as the newspaper headline and we see a whole group of cyclists plowed into. It doesn’t match up. That’s all I’m saying.
If he had clipped them with his side mirror, then ok, I’d believe the story that has been presented so far.
No kidding. I’m not trying to suggest that the driver isn’t at fault. I’m saying that the story so far sounds like BS. It doesn’t align.
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You are right that we don’t know the full story, and probably we will never will know what the driver truly intended to do.
The victims likewise probably won’t have a full grasp of what transpired — not only because they don’t have eyes in the back of their heads and things must have happened in a split second, but because that’s what shock does to you. (I’m not dinging them, that’s just the nature of things.) Nor would I take the passenger’s testimony at face value.
The question, though, is whether this is relevant for the legal case at all. I can’t say, I am not a lawyer. However, I can’t see a scenario where this crash wouldn’t have been 100 % the drivers fault and where the driver at the very least accepted risking the lives or the cyclists.
What worries me, though, is the cavalier attitude of law enforcement, and I reckon this attitude continues in at least parts of the judiciary system.
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My GUESS, is that he was attempting to ‘coal roll’ the second group. To do this requires a hard acceleration. This also causes something called ‘torque steer’, where the hard acceleration causes the vehicle to pull to the left or right. Which put him on the path to running over the 6 cyclists.
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In my area of rural mid Michigan, the trucks move over into the on coming lane to pass me, cars give me less room. On gravel roads most everyone waves at me, trucks usually slow down as not to “dust” me, cars rarely do. Trucks are not a problem in my area, but it only takes one bad driver in whatever vehicle.
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Nah. He was driving a f250… That’s a rwd truck
Torque steer happens on fwd vehicle.
My guess is that they were laughing and looking on his rearview mirror after the roll of the back group and didn’t noticed the second group in front of the truck until he hit it . Maybe he was recording the reactions and failed to notice more cyclist in front of him…
Whatever it was… It was negligence
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I think this is what happened. Given the report that the cyclist in the rear group was trying to catch up to him makes me think the two packs of cyclists were not that far apart.
One ironically annoying tangent to this story is as I was riding to a local mountain bike trail yesterday I am on a small country road. I came around a bend to a large dualy pick up truck coming straight at me in my lane, crossing a double yellow in a curve, speeding up, and rolling coal on two cyclists he was passing. I had to slam on brakes and almost completely stop or we would have been in a head on collision. He made no attempts to slow down and thankfully didn’t swerve into the cyclists, but scared the crap out of me and I’m sure those cyclists.
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RWD vehicles definitely experience torque steer, I spent many years racing rwd vehicles. I’ve seen many cars almost hit the guard rails in the first 60 ft at the drag strip.
I agree it is 100% negligence. I also believe it’s criminal assault. His intent might not have been to make physical contact but he was 100% assaulting them by rolling coal and anything that happens in that act imo is linked back to the original intent.
As a brit all this rolling coal stuff is completely bizarre. As bad as the roads are over here any driver spotted doing anything like this would probably be reprimanded for dangerous driving - it seems pretty accepted over there?
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No, not accepted, but we have so much land area over here that once you get out of the city you are on some pretty rural roads and there just isn’t enough law enforcement to patrol all of this space so people can get away with doing crazy things like this.
OT a bit… Torque steer is mostly a FWD problem. On RWD is a different problem. The power causes the driver lose control. It looks like torque steer, but is not the same, at least on the pure definition of the word…
At the end, it doesnt matter… this was not that problem… it was stupidity of a teen.
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OR,
LE dont care enough and chose not to enforce the law.
In Florida its illegal to have a truck lifted more than certain amount (and lowered too), plus is illegal to modify a diesel car to do roll coal.
Yet, it ridiculous the amount of trucks with lift that you almost need a ladder to climb, plus the diesle pickups modified to do roll coal…
and they drive by police every day, and yet LE chose not to ticket them… 
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