Texas car shop faces criticism after video appears to show owner ‘rolling coal’ on cyclist
Members of a Facebook group dedicated to cycling in North Texas are calling for a boycott of a vehicle customization business in Van Alstyne after a video posted to the social media platform showed a man rev his engine as he passed a cyclist to blow billows of exhaust smoke toward a cyclist.
Kevin Soucie, the owner of Turn 5 Fabrication, posted the video that appears to show a driver pass the cyclist, who was riding on the side of the road, in the Facebook community group McKinney Uncensored.
The video showed a red pickup truck pass the cyclist as the man driving records, pointing the camera at the passenger side mirror, and saying, “Oh my god, it’s a cyclist.”
The driver then sped up and zoomed in on the mirror to show the truck pump out billows of black smoke onto the cyclist and along his or her path, something cyclists refer to as “rolling coal.”
Soucie told the Star-Telegram in a phone interview that he was “vaguely familiar” with the video but didn’t “know all the details.” He said that he didn’t think the video was captured in McKinney, but near the city. He didn’t deny that he was the driver in the video, instead saying he didn’t want to comment.
“The only thing that I would say to that is don’t let someone’s personal actions affect the place of business where they work at,” Soucie said, saying he didn’t want to comment any further over the phone on the video or the response from the community.
When asked if he was an owner of the store, Soucie said “yes and no” and declined to elaborate. The business’ Google listing includes a photo claiming Soucie as the owner. The same image is on the business’ website.
Magan Tyler, a car enthusiast and off-road cyclist, posted a screen recording of the Facebook video in the North Texas Cycling group, along with a Google listing for the business that includes a photo where Soucie is named as the owner, and asked members not to go there.
She said she knows based off the voice of the person in the video that it is Soucie. He’s a fellow car enthusiast, though Tyler said she hopes his being a member of that community does not make others look bad.
Members of the cycling group took that information, she told the Star-Telegram, and have gone to Soucie’s Google listing and posted reviews based on the video. Tyler said she didn’t intend on that or expect it to happen, but that it seems to be the community’s way of righting a wrong.
“Owner posts videos of himself endangering cyclist on the road,” one of the reviews said. “Not someone I’d recommend working with.”
“If the owner acts anything like his business does, I highly do not recommend,” another review said.
Some reviews have been positive since Soucie’s posts gained traction, with most of the positive reviews saying he does good work, while a couple make fun of cyclists.
Tyler said rolling coal is dangerous. It obscures a cyclist’s vision and can burn their eyes, creating potential for them to crash and get hurt or killed. It also makes it hard to breathe, and when a cyclist is already exerting him or herself, that can be dangerous, too.
As a member of the car enthusiast and motorsports communities, Tyler said she doesn’t want people to think this is behavior others in those communities see as acceptable.
If Soucie wanted to try to make amends, Tyler suggested he reach out to groups of road cyclists in North Texas to ask forgiveness and donate to local organizations of cyclists or groups promoting safety for them.
In a video sent to the Star-Telegram by a Facebook user, Soucie says he wants to apologize, that he “did something really dumb” and that the cyclist did nothing wrong to him.
“People can hate me all they want, they can dislike me all they want, they can badmouth me all they want, but when you start to badmouth a company, which is not in reflection of what I do in my personal life, that’s where I draw the line,” Soucie says after saying he wants to apologize.
He has since either made the video unviewable to people who are not his Facebook friends or taken it down.
He said in the video that boycotting his business hurts his employees who “are loyal enough to stay here working with me even though they themselves didn’t agree with what I did.”
“It’s just unnecessary feedback, to leave the company negative reviews and try to ruin that establishment,” Soucie said in the video. “I, myself, I ride bikes and I’ve dealt with people who have done stuff like this. And you know what? I’ve always just kind of laughed it off.”
“It’s not like I hit the guy or swerved toward the guy,” Soucie said in the video. “I got over a lane because he was taking up a lane. That’s what cyclists do. But I understand that what I did was not cool and it was kind of a bad reflection of my company.”
Texas law allows cyclists to ride on the road in a traffic lane.
Soucie said in the video that this is an example of cancel culture, “and that’s really not cool, either.”