EARTH DAY: Colorado a Step Closer to Levying Fines on ‘Gasholes’
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Your author tries not to create too much of a stir with his vibrant and eventful Chevy Cruze, but sometimes it’s hard. Still, there’s at least an attempt to keep the peace, ensuring owners of alternative-fuel vehicles feel respected in the presence of my potent 1.4-liter studcarriage.
Others aren’t quite as respectful, as documented in certain videos. “ICEing” Teslas isn’t cool. As public charging stations proliferate, it’s bringing the two sides into direct conflict with each other — especially in areas where parking is a limited commodity. What to do? Impose fines and hope for the best, it seems.
Certain states and municipalities have already enacted laws to make the blocking of an EV charging station by an internal combustion vehicle punishable by a steep fine. Colorado’s just the latest state to seek the preferred solution to “gasholes” (or “ICEholes) who hog these coveted spots.
House Bill 1298 would see plugless perpetrators fined $150 for parking at a charging station in the ZEV state. The bipartisan bill passed the House on April 18th and is now in the Senate.
If this proposed legislation moves readers to anger or applause, thank Kamala Vanderkolk, Roxborough Park resident and owner of a Tesla Model X, as well as the state of Arizona. Vanderkolk was moved to write the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Kevin Priola (R) and state Rep. Jovan Melton, (D) after a visit to Flagstaff, Arizona. There, EV charging station hogs face a $350 fine.
Because most electric vehicle owners charge at home, the growing conflict between EV drivers and ICE owners often takes place at way stations. Hotel parking lots, for example. It was in a Marriot parking lot in Flagstaff where Vanderkolk found herself faced with a row of EV chargers, each one blocked by a non-electric car. Not surprisingly, her advocacy for the bill has earned her online enemies. One Twitter user said he would park in every EV spot he came across, just out of spite.
One of the bill’s backers says it isn’t about preferential treatment for EV owners. As the spot is reserved for EVs, only EVs should park there.
“This is not to create some type of convenience for EV vehicles,” Rep. Melton said during the House debate, per The Colorado Sun . “This is saying don’t block the port where they can charge.”
The same fine would apply to EV or PHEV owners who linger too long at the plug after topping off their battery. There’s a 30-minute grace period written into the proposed legislation.
Tim Jackson, CEO of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, calls the bill “a solution looking for a problem.”
“Non-electric cars parked in electric charging stations are rare and didn’t need protection from hundreds of dollars in fines or tow-aways to solve,” he said, adding that he could count on one hand “the number of times that someone has parked a non-electric car in an electric charging station” at the group’s Denver HQ.
It seems likely the bill will eventually pass into law, and it’s even more likely that certain drivers will ignore the warning signs that go up in its wake. The battle between two classes of drivers will continue, only the state will now make some money off of it.
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The link in the second paragraph goes to another article in TTAC:
Don’t ICE Teslas, Bro
Image: Reddit user Leicina
During my wayward youth in the Aughts/early this decade, a friend of mine decided it would be funny if he got me involved in a weird little bar game called “icing.” The idea of this game was to order your friend a Smirnoff Ice surreptitiously and/or hide it somewhere, and when he received the drink he must drop to one knee and chug it. There may be other variations to the game, but that’s all I recall.
Like many things that happened culturally during that decade, icing was quite stupid. Stupid as it was, it was also relatively harmless. The “iced” got a free drink out of it, even if it was a terrible vodka drink, and everyone else got a laugh. The late Aughts were such innocent times.
Fast-forward a decade and now there’s a new type of “icing” afoot, though it’s now called “ ICE-ing .” It has nothing to do with booze, but it still involves bros.
Reports have surfaced that truck owners have been blocking Tesla superchargers to keep Tesla owners from charging. How widespread the issue is remains unclear – the most substantial report I’ve seen involves an incident in North Carolina. Some Tesla owners are even fighting back, via a tow rope .
But even if this isn’t happening on a large scale, it’s still shitty. Preventing an EV driver from charging could leave them stranded – which at best is an inconvenience and at worst puts someone in danger.
Yeah, I get it. These truck-owning bros behind the ICE-ing may have a good reason to dislike Tesla – it’s not like Elon Musk or the brand itself have endeared themselves to people. And many Tesla drivers are well-off, financially, so they may seem easy targets (I’m putting aside the fact that many of these bro-truckers dropped a pretty penny on aftermarket upgrades for their rig).
Except, being stranded sucks no matter how big your bank account is. All these drivers want to do is get some juice so that they can go about their day. Yet a few yokels are getting some jollies at blocking chargers because, what? They want to throw up a symbolic double middle-finger salute to federal fuel-economy regs, or smug Tesla drivers, or something?
I have no doubt some Tesla drivers are smug – we’ve seen them in the comments here at times. But smugness doesn’t deserve this B.S. Imagine how righteously pissed off the rest of us would be if EV drivers blocked gas pumps.
I’m no fan of rolling coal, either, but at least that’s a relatively harmless expression of stupidity. I don’t really get why you’d need to roll coal in the face of a Prius driver for the same reasons I don’t get why bros are ICE-ing folks, but at least that lousy show of your tiny manhood doesn’t really add much pollution in the aggregate, and it won’t leave someone stuck on the side of the road.
Here’s the thing. We all live in a society, and there’s a basic unwritten contract governing our public behavior. A part of the contract states, “don’t be a dick.” I realize I sound a bit like Costanza waiting for the pay phone at the Chinese restaurant (“you know, we’re living IN A SOCIETY!”) but nevertheless, it’s true. Regardless of whether I like Tesla or not, I have no reason to go out of my way to fuck up someone else’s day just because I either don’t like their purchase or some possible future it represents. And you don’t, either.
Maybe I am just gripped with the usual New Year’s prattle about being kinder to our fellow man, but I mean it. We’re already ugly enough to one another in public and in traffic and on the internet. That’s not likely to change. But if a few of you bro-dozer drivers out there can at least have the human decency to let Tesla owners charge in peace, that’s a start.
Otherwise, I have no choice but to order Smirnoff Ices for all.
Please read the seed. Please Comment on-topic. Thank you.