Riding a bike in the undulating terrain between lakes in northern Michigan is close to ideal, as it features smooth pavement, gentle inclines, effulgent blue vistas, and nearly deserted roads that invite a meditative state. Incongruously, that is where I first learned about coal-rolling, by experiencing it myself.

When a truck hunkering to the right and bearing down appeared in my helmet’s rear-view mirror, chrome smokestacks enhancing the visual effect, I edged toward the gravel but was still nearly sideswiped. Then, punctuated by a blast tuned like a train-whistle, the deep brown carcinogenic cloud rolled over.

A Long Way to Go for a Bad Joke

The event left me more bewildered than outraged. What had just happened? Looking into it, I found that coal rollers spend up to $5,000 illegally tampering with their emissions systems by installing “defeat devices” that bypass pollution controls. This retrofit allows them to generate, at the flip of a switch, volumes of sooty exhaust that humiliate pedestrians (usually women) and outrage cyclists. This is a long way to go for a bad, labored joke.

In fact, my experience was not isolated. The taunt can leave motorists and cyclists in a temporary blackout. It is common enough and dangerous enough that several states have declared rolling coal a crime.

These laws are hard to enforce. Police must witness a violation first. But federal law sanctions the engine modifications that emit noxious unburned fuel at a rate up to 1,400 times allowable limits. Since 2016, the Discovery Channel has featured the reality series, “Diesel Brothers,” which follows a group of skillful Utah truck customizers. Four years later, a federal judge fined three of the principals on the show a total of $850,000 for hundreds of violations of the Clean Air Act.

Play This Isn’t

This is not the kind of harmless, playful, good-natured prank that officemates or roommates or fellow campers might cook........

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