Truck drivers say 'rolling coal' is for 'idiots,' but emissions cheating is a bigger Texas problem

A blast of thick, black smoke dropped onto a group of cyclists riding swiftly along a Waller County road on a sunny late September day left a heap of damaged bikes and broken bones. A 16-year-old pickup driver on U.S. 290 had “rolled coal,” deliberately spewing diesel exhaust into the group of cyclists, who suffered serious injuries that sent them to hospitals. The teen driver was not arrested at the scene and has not been charged in the incident. The crash drew national headlines and put heat on Waller City Police after Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis accused them of mishandling the investigation. Mathis said the intentional act of blowing exhaust smoke on the riders should be “at minimum an assault.” Officials with the district attorney’s office said charges could be filed this week.

Rolling coal is nothing new in truck-loving Texas. Videos of elaborately tricked-out pickups blasting diesel smoke are all over social media. But the recent incidents have raised questions about the practice of tampering with diesel engines. Just a week or so after the Waller crash, an unidentified driver was seen on a now-deleted viral video rolling coal into a packed Whataburger in Cypress off of U.S. 290 after a high school football game. The person who took the video, Jayson Manzanares of Bridgeland High School, said he often sees drivers in his area rolling coal, but usually at a stoplight and not directed at people. Local truck aficionados and environmental advocates agree coal rollers are an inexperienced, rogue minority of drivers who give diesel a bad name. But many who don’t roll coal do tamper with their diesel vehicles’ exhaust systems, often disabling the emissions control system or installing aftermarket defeat devices that help cheat emissions tests, as Volkswagen did in its scandal. The practice adds huge amounts of pollutants to the air, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Modifying diesel exhaust systems is illegal, but drivers rarely are sanctioned for doing so, or for using diesel smoke to harass or harm pedestrians, bicyclists or other drivers. Until that happens, the practice is unlikely to stop, officials and safety and environmental advocates say. The U.S. took a big leap toward cleaner diesel engines in 2007 when the EPA issued regulations requiring manufacturers to put particulate filters in the exhaust systems of vehicles.