34 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 86.6 ms ] thread
Infantile nonsense.
I disagree, polluting vehicles are basically an enemy occupying force in our cities. Unless it’s a work vehicle, emergency services, there’s no reason to drive such a thing around a city. It’s not like the owners have no choice too, they could afford a smaller more practical car. Every bit of resistance helps. Hacking peoples behaviour is what we need.
People from rural areas never have to go to the city...
With 99% certainty, every luxury SUV with fancy tyres and wheels in my suburb is definitely not a farm vehicle, nor has it ever been used off road.
> People from rural areas never have to go to the city...

I try not to but sometimes it happens. I don't drive enough outside of work to justify even the insurance on my car. So it stays parked and on the rare occasion I have to make a trip that's not for work, or on the way home from work, I must drive my truck. Sometimes I even need the truck outside of work.

> Unless it’s a work vehicle, emergency services, there’s no reason to drive such a thing around a city.

I live in a city and purchased an electric car for scuba diving, something I do regularly and wouldn't be able to do without it. According to the website, they'd have no problem deflating my tires. How can that be justified?

This line of reasoning has no limiting principle.

Anything beyond anyone's personal stance on climate would become fair game for vigilante harassment.

Probably one of the more effective forms of protest really. If you can take the convenience factor away from major polluters then you seriously degrade the value proposition of SUVs.
It seems like a good way to get yourself hurt. I would call the police if I caught someone doing it to my truck, but others might not.
This is pretty silly. SUVs are the perfect vehicle for luxury taxes the same way cigarettes currently are.

You’re not going to remove SUVs from the road but you can easily make them pay for the environment with some clever lobbying.

A one time tax is awkward for a machine that pollutes continuously over its lifespan and is usually resold multiple times.
I don't know about you but my car gets taxed every year in the form of vehicle registration fees which in part depend on the weight and classification of the vehicle and that's before getting into gas taxes.
PDF: >>(Driving a hybrid or electric? These are still polluting, dangerous and cause congestion. See more on our website)

There is nothing more about electric vehicles on the website.

There is, it's in the 'how to' section. Not all that consistent and referring to the site but leaving it up to a visitor to hunt down where that might be is a bit weird.
Someone made a choice I disagree with, so I'm going to vandalize their property!
Would deflation of a tyre via the valve be considered vandalism? Seems that at a glance it would be third-degree criminal mischief and they are attempting to mitigate that with their flyer-on-the-window idea.
This has been done before. When real fur jackets were common it was a thing to throw paint on them to discourage wearing real fur in public and ultimately stop the production of them.
A lot of evil things have been done before. That doesn't make them okay to do now.
Fur farming was evil and now it is massively less popular. So it looked like the activist action worked.
If drug usage and petty theft carried a mandatory death penalty, we'd see a lot less of them too. But would doing that be a good thing just because it would work?
As an owner of both a zero-emissions EV used for commuting and fuel-guzzling "SUV", and for good measure a 3500 super-duper king-everything el-continento-maximus truck too, I have to say that this is absolutely extremism, and is hardly rational.

I use my vehicles for what they were designed for. I harm the environment far less than the average joe commuter in a prius. Why? I don't drive my giant big trucks and SUVs 20,000-30,000 miles a year - more like 2-3K. So he's spewing far more CO2 than me. How do you know who uses which car for what? Who hauls cargo? Pulls a trailer for the soccer team? etc. Why do you get to decide who it is just to injure?

If you think the climate "crisis" is so severe as to make unilateral acts of eco-terrorism morally acceptable, why not just go after the poor long distance commuters? Start slicing camry and prius tires in suburban bedroom communities instead!

Secondly, while it's absolutely your own opinion on who to judge in your private house, when you cross that line and start vandalizing my property, you can bet you're going to get called on it, charges pressed, and/or sued. Dumb. Make your point, but keep your hands off other people's property. If you desire change, vote accordingly or at least protest legally.

Finally, I'll point out that the brochure includes compact cross-overs RAV-4 as an SUV. Hardly. It's a tall compact car that barely seats four+, and can get 40+ mpg.

That website doesn't advocate 'slashing tires'. But as an owner of three (???) cars, I suppose the concept they advocate for would be the inverse of your preference.
I'm also not actually advocated for slashing tires of long-distance-commuters, but I'm pointing out there is very little difference, and secondly their target is misidentified.

> But as an owner of three (???) cars,

first of all, I don't own three cars. I own exactly one, very sensible, car, one "SUV", and several other pieces of heavy equipment that are all used properly and efficiently. I'm far too cheap to waste money on status symbols or gas guzzling.

The concept that they advocate for should be the inverse of every fair minded human. Let's vandalize other peoples stuff if we don't agree (and anonymously downvote too!).

> first of all, I don't own three cars. I own exactly one, very sensible, car, one "SUV", and several other pieces of heavy equipment that are all used properly and efficiently.

I often hear "car" used as a synonym with "automobile". And dictionaries seem to agree with that. However, I do not call my pickup truck a car, but I do have another car which I call a car.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/automobile

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/car

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/car

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/car

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/car

uh huh... And how many synonyms for "three" do you know of? I didn't say I owned three "automobiles" either.

The responder was apparently dazed, and/or annoyed by owning more than two of something "(???)", none of which was the point.

The point is that - I am one that this article would have called out to be vandalized, but for no good reason. So I can identify as to the arbitrariness of fixating on a single thing (e.g. "SUVs"). I don't care what you drive, how big it is, how many of them you have, etc. and nor should any of you. I care about the environment, and I'm a better steward of it than most. If you want to care about carbon footprint, then fine, protest those who are wasteful, but don't go letting the air out of some poor soccer mom's rav4s that she might drive 50 miles a week because it will save the earth.

> mmm hrm. And how many synonyms for "three" do you know of? I didn't say I owned three "automobiles" either.

You did list three vehicles, that could be where the three came from. I probably shouldn't have commented though, but I guess it's too late for that.

> The point is that - I am one that this article would have called out to be vandalized, but for no reason so I can identify. I don't care what you drive, how big it is, how many of them you have, etc. and nor should any of you. I care about the environment, and I'm a better steward of it than most.

I am too. And I too would get very angry if something like this left me stranded 30 miles from the job site with a load of lumber while I was in a restaurant eating lunch. The words I would use in such a situation would not be appropriate here.

peace! sounds like we pretty much agree.

> And I too would get very angry if something like this left me stranded 30 miles from the job site with a load of lumber while

and that's a fact! or momma with a load of soccer kids.

It seems like a counter protest to the Tesla charger ice-ing.. both cause inconveniences to people who just want to get on with their day. It just causes more divide without actually tackling or discussing the problem.
I know someone that got hit by this. They drove a Kia electric car.... All that did was make an enemy of anyone that was told the story and or shown the pamphlet.

This is one step from a very slippery slope in the current day and age of anti-masking/vaccine/lockdowns.

But under inflated tyres are had for fuel economy.

edit: They should he pumping those bad boys up to 50psi, send them around corners like nobodies business

This is going to get someone shot.

Or it's just going to make SUV/Truck owners even more irritable and aggressive towards everyone on the road and in the parking lots.

It would be absolutely legit to kneecap anyone trying to mess with your wheels. And this guy is probably some basement-activist who couldn't afford a car.

And if he really thinks he can mess with other people's things and get away with it, I won't be surprised if he's arrested or even shot someday.

Bodily harm as a 'response' to some material mischief is never 'legit'.