A truck driver in New Zealand has drawn the ire of Redditors after parking in a spot designated for electric vehicle owners.
The original poster shared a photo in the r/auckland subreddit, which shows the truck taking up a parking space in the EV section of the Sylvia Park Shopping Centre. It's clear the person wanted to antagonize EV drivers, as they took the charging cable and stuck it into the bed of their Ford Ranger.
Several commenters expressed their irritation, with one user pointing out the irony of the situation.
"These guys definitely think they're funny as f*** for inconveniencing people, but, at the same time have near meltdowns when there's a cyclist on the road," they wrote.
Case in point: One cyclist who biked across the U.S. was the target of verbal harassment, coal rolling, and aggressive behaviors from truck drivers as she traveled through Kansas. Another cyclist also had coal rolled on them while biking in Texas, but at least there was an environmental police officer who saw what happened and pulled the offender over.
Some gas car owners will still go out of their way to inconvenience EV drivers, as one pulled a similar stunt to the Ranger driver and blocked a charging station.
Hopefully, these anecdotes won't deter car owners from choosing more environmentally friendly modes of transportation. Switching to an EV can save owners an average of $15,000 over a decade while reducing their pollution output by 100,000 pounds in the same span.
And with increased charging infrastructure, tax breaks provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, and improving technology, there's no better time to help reverse the effects of an overheating planet by changing the type of car you drive.
"I don't understand why people set out to antagonise others. I just don't get it," a person said of the original post.
"If you let the mall management know they will ticket or tow it," another suggested.
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