My trip to a 4x4 dealer's to put gas-guzzlers out of action, and leave a statement of solidarity with the planet and against petrol-wastage.
Last night, inspired by Greenpeace’s big parking ticket campaign for 4x4 gas-guzzlers, I decided to put some of these monsters out of action at source, in this case the Toyota showroom on Leeds Road, Huddersfield.
Armed only with 2 tins of spraypaint and a pointed rock I did £2,400 worth of damage to 4 4x4 beasts in the forecourt (3 Rav4s and 1 Land Cruiser), spraying and scratching slogans like “4x4 More Oil More War”, “Petrol is costing the Earth” and the simple, unauthorised “GREENPEACE”, in addition to putting a few dents in them.
Since my last visit to the Leeds Road dealership arcade in July, security had been brought in, and as I made a casual getaway I was apprehended by police in 5 squad cars, who were very nice throughout my arrest and overnight detention, remarking “It’s not your job to put the world to rights.” I wish it wasn’t, because I am most amateurish, attempting to disable the CCTV after I had tackled the 4x4s, during which I had forgotten to pull my bandanna up over my nose. But whose job is it, then? Theirs?
Actually I did think they were well cheeky to go and search my home while I was in the cells, before I'd even been charged. Apparently this is permitted under a Section 18, which covers anyone arrested? They said they were looking for more spraypaint, or for Greenpeace literature, and they didn't find any. I reckon they couldn't find the house.
To apply further hindsight to self-criticise my direct action:
I was on my own, I only had black spraypaint, which is ineffective against black vehicles, my slogans were a bit boring and obvious, I went over the top in being disarmingly honest in custody, owning up to a much bigger eco-terrorist spree earlier in the year, I should have started off at my main target - the Land Rover dealership which I never reached (Land Rover Discoveries do as little as 12 miles to the gallon in urban use whereas Toyota’s gas guzzlers are a bit less greedy), I should have taken photographs, I hadn’t considered who I would appoint as solicitor, I hadn’t checked with Greenpeace if I could use their name in my stunt, I hadn’t done enough planning to ensure my act of civil disobedience would reach a broader audience.
On the positive side I only attacked vehicles still belonging to their producer rather than to private individuals (not that I would condemn this outright), I thoroughly charmed the police, I hadn’t been drinking or on drugs or used smutty language, and I proper cleaned up in the interview room.
But mainly I did it, and it was fun.
I am bailed with a 9pm curfew and a clause not to enter any garage forecourts until my trial for criminal damage on Wednesday morning, 28th September at Huddersfield magistrate's court. Come along if you fancy a laugh.
Armed only with 2 tins of spraypaint and a pointed rock I did £2,400 worth of damage to 4 4x4 beasts in the forecourt (3 Rav4s and 1 Land Cruiser), spraying and scratching slogans like “4x4 More Oil More War”, “Petrol is costing the Earth” and the simple, unauthorised “GREENPEACE”, in addition to putting a few dents in them.
Since my last visit to the Leeds Road dealership arcade in July, security had been brought in, and as I made a casual getaway I was apprehended by police in 5 squad cars, who were very nice throughout my arrest and overnight detention, remarking “It’s not your job to put the world to rights.” I wish it wasn’t, because I am most amateurish, attempting to disable the CCTV after I had tackled the 4x4s, during which I had forgotten to pull my bandanna up over my nose. But whose job is it, then? Theirs?
Actually I did think they were well cheeky to go and search my home while I was in the cells, before I'd even been charged. Apparently this is permitted under a Section 18, which covers anyone arrested? They said they were looking for more spraypaint, or for Greenpeace literature, and they didn't find any. I reckon they couldn't find the house.
To apply further hindsight to self-criticise my direct action:
I was on my own, I only had black spraypaint, which is ineffective against black vehicles, my slogans were a bit boring and obvious, I went over the top in being disarmingly honest in custody, owning up to a much bigger eco-terrorist spree earlier in the year, I should have started off at my main target - the Land Rover dealership which I never reached (Land Rover Discoveries do as little as 12 miles to the gallon in urban use whereas Toyota’s gas guzzlers are a bit less greedy), I should have taken photographs, I hadn’t considered who I would appoint as solicitor, I hadn’t checked with Greenpeace if I could use their name in my stunt, I hadn’t done enough planning to ensure my act of civil disobedience would reach a broader audience.
On the positive side I only attacked vehicles still belonging to their producer rather than to private individuals (not that I would condemn this outright), I thoroughly charmed the police, I hadn’t been drinking or on drugs or used smutty language, and I proper cleaned up in the interview room.
But mainly I did it, and it was fun.
I am bailed with a 9pm curfew and a clause not to enter any garage forecourts until my trial for criminal damage on Wednesday morning, 28th September at Huddersfield magistrate's court. Come along if you fancy a laugh.
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Comments
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well done rene
22.09.2005 09:51
All the best for your future projects, if you get sent down we'll support you!!!
stop eco-collapse
Do you realise?
22.09.2005 10:23
Wankmobile
Que?
22.09.2005 10:45
You see? With this action you have created the opposite effect than that which you intended. There are ways and means of disrupting the SUV/4x4 trade. Even the action you took could have been far more effective. Why spraypaint & rocks for instance? Far more efiicient = screwdriver through the grille damage the radiator slightly (not so much that it leaks), hole punch makes a small hole in the exhaust muffler, jam very small stone inside the cap of the valves on the tyres to create artificial slow punctures, superglue the window washer spray nozzle blocked. All small actions with a far reaching effect, customer buys 4x4, customer returns to dealership with every new problem which develops, replaced radiator, replaced exhaust, replaced tyres, fixed windscreen wash... dealerships PR skills are not exactly award winning. Customers paranoia runs wild and they begin to believe Car Company is complicit in the problems to make a profit, customers get unhappy and bad news travels far and wide, Car Company Sales affected. I personally would not even condone this course of action because I have more faith in the human ability to see reason... eventualy.
Please, in future think hard and reconsider before behaving in such a thoughtless wasteful manner.
Lord Haw Haw
well done
22.09.2005 11:50
s
Hmm, I see logic and reason are alien concepts to you.
22.09.2005 12:59
Lord Haw Haw
Stupid, stupid, stupid
22.09.2005 20:14
You disapprove of 4x4s. Do you disapprove of Fiat Panda 4x4, or all suzukis including the horrible Justy, which is the size of a matchbox, does 60mph, but is still a 4x4. Discos may do 12mpg around town but so do most 2.0 litre cars and above. Are they evil as well? How could I take my children to school without my car (which on the school run does 10mpg)? I live 8 miles from the school - should they walk, or cycle down a very busy road? What about a bus? Errrr.... no. Nearest bus stop is 5 miles in the opposite direction.
Do you fly abroad for your holiday? Do you use diesel trains? Planes and diesel trains use more fuel than if all passengers took their cars on the same journey.
....ok lets get back to your point. Criminal damage on such a scale? I hope they lock you up. 3 years at least. Are you ready for prison life?
sstteep
I take onboard criticism...
22.09.2005 22:24
Also, notice I made no claim to be perfect, and actually criticised myself, some of which has been needlessly duplicated. I smoke (leaving non-biodegradable filters), eat meat, shag women (now and then), shop at various multi-nationals, use a computer (obviously), have taken cocaine (which fuels drug wars, exploitation and death squads), I spend too much time in bed, and I haven't killed myself to stop me from exhaling CO2. I can be justly criticised for this, but none of this means that I don't have the right to protest. I am miffed about activist elitism, the "if you're not 100% ethical then you should just sit on your arse with the proles" brigade. I may return to this subject some time.
Anyway, I have no wish for 4x4s per se to be banned, as some people use them for more worthwhile purposes than status symbols; jobs which require high pulling power, load-bearing or offroad mobility. However, this does not adequately explain the rise in their popularity, or the fact that very few have dirty tires or tow-bars attached. Do the adverts generally show workmen/workwomen carrying heavy machinery on their pick-ups, or farmers pulling horse-boxes or using their jeeps to reach their flocks?
I should also clarify, I am not an expert on the subject but I realise all 4x4s are not the same.
4x4s may well feel safer, but to whom? Even now that bullbars are off limits, they are more likely to inflict grievous damage or death to children, the elderly, pedestrians in general, cyclists, and to hit other vehicles beyond their crumple-zones, not to mention that the driver themselves may well be more likely to indulge in reckless driving because they feel so safe. I don't actually know whether the problem of 4x4s being likely to roll over on corners has been sorted out, but you get my point.
I accept that a person has a right to choose what car to drive, just as I have a right to choose which to vandalise. Thanks to those who supported this action. I already have a criminal record, and as other more famous civil disobedience folks have said (ie. some philosopher-bloke called Thoreau, or that Eugene who ran for the US parliament from his jail cell), while people are being imprisoned for sod-all, the most honest place to be for an activist is in jail. It's not like, to go and get arrested on purpose, but just not to care so much about it, consider your own life now to be no more precious than everyone else's in the future, and since nuclear war may break out tomorrow anyway, if we all value our (false) freedoms too highly, we will soon have no freedom.
Rene Thomas
e-mail:
weallpoo@yahoo.co.uk
Weather chaos
22.09.2005 22:44
what will your school run car look like when a hurricane like Rita is through with it ?
We have already had boscastle and rydale vally more on the way !!!!!
sheffjeff
more the merrier
23.09.2005 12:10
Thank you for just getting their and doing something. Ignore these trolls seeking to justify their own disempowerment and inaction with inane criticisms. No doubt they'd have us all vote SWP or New Laborious Lies or something similiar.
I think the saying, keep up the good work, is appropriate here and hope others take inspiration.
Love 'n' rage 'n' liberation
A friend
Daimler Benztards
Oof hot issue!
23.09.2005 13:40
Having a society where in order to function we need to rely on a polluting box is not the way forward, and in some ways we need to bring things back to a human/pedestrian/cyclist scale. After all, we have good communications technology now and surely there are many ways we can cut down on unnecessary transport, especially in such a densely populated country.
Silince
Even stupid people have a right to be heard...
23.09.2005 19:09
Lord Haw Haw's point about more sophisticated methods of sabotage, for instance, is educational, although when I might need to use such knowledge I cannot yet speculate. For now, I am not as hardline and had ruled out action intended to cause random-ish vehicles to break down spontaneously. The chance of being "responsible" for a road accident or so is something I find off-putting, so I stuck to cosmetic damage. At least while car ownership is akin to necessity to many who are less fortunate than me (I walk, bus or cycle, and tend not to need to travel far).
Agree that we can tend to centre our lives around cars. They are as much status symbols as mode of transport, especially with increasing gridlocks. Remember the 80s when there were loads of cars with unmatched body panel colouring? What about psychadelically-painted cars in the 60s (I wasn't alive, so don't start!) If I had to drive a car, the first thing I'd do would be to deface it. It would still get you to the workplace which your home is inconveniently situated x miles away from.
By the way, I got barred from active Greenpeace membership today.
Rene Thomas
e-mail:
weallpoo@yahoo.co.uk
well done
24.09.2005 12:35
> I am miffed about activist elitism, the "if you're not 100% ethical then you should just sit on your arse with
> the proles" brigade.
I've found myself that this comes not from activists, but by people who for their own reasons feel threatened by others actually getting out of their armchairs. It's an excuse for doing nothing, for saying "you there, with ideals, you've got your head in the clouds. If you understood the reality of the situation, you'd do nothing like me.", which is another way of really saying "I actually don't want to look at my responsibility for living on this planet or the impacts my lifestyle has, thank you very much."
"Being an activist is the rent we pay for being on the planet." Alice Walker
Oh, and again by my definition, and without getting into a huge debate about it, you've taken direct action, not civil disobedience. Anyone who's interested in the difference can look it up and think on it themselves.
Also, for sabotage tips, check out Ozymandias Handbook of Sabotage and Direct Action - search on the web, or follow the links which I think are uptodate, on www.eco-action.org/blinc, remembering about the lack of security on the internet (maybe go to an internet cafe?).
bleater
renting the planet
24.09.2005 17:57
One thing I couldn't notice by myself too;
Just because the "stewards", eg security, thought that I might STEAL a vehicle, they put 5 squad cars straight out onto me.
How many vehicles, and how fast, would have come out for a reported rape?
What is valued more, life or lucre?
Rene Thomas
e-mail:
weallpoo@yahoo.co.uk
cars, oil and the future...
25.09.2005 15:26
Silince you are 100% right with the point about the distance that the school is away from where the person lives. We need to be making the shift now, to sustainable lifestyles with maximum energy efficiency or we are going to see a nasty collapse (shortages of food, panic etc). No more should we expect to be able to drive 8 miles to take a child to school or go to a supermarket in the car for the weekly shop. This ridiculously wasteful life style is going to come to an end like it or not, prepared or not!
My advice to anyone reading this, is to start looking for information about becoming prepared for life after peak oil production. Getting yourself put in jail may not be the ideal thing to do on the run up to the problems ahead of us as what time you have available to you now should be used to start preparing. There will be no more 4x4 / SUV's on the forecourts in the near future anyway.
Seriously, I am not trying to detract from whatever direct action has been taken but I think you'd be better looking into building communities of people who are going to offer solidarity and learn the basic skills (carpentry, permaculture / biointensive / organic small scale farming, first aid and basic survival skills) that will be needed for us to survive the times ahead.
Sorry if I sound like some doomsday nutter, but seriously, have a look on the Internet and see just how dependent we are on the cheap oil and keep yourselves one step ahead. By the time the government has plans to tackle what we have ahead of us, it will be very panic driven (or deception driven, just google for Strategic Communication Laboratories and their Psy-Ops disinfomation services (who were there at the DSEI!)) to say the least. This is more a problem to do with our short term model of democracy that any particular political party. No one is going to get elected who is for the deconstruction of modern day capitalism (and that is what is required) and the consumer culture that comes with it that has been systematically destroying the planet for decades.
Basically, I am saying, it is probably best to direct your efforts into doing something positive. Read up on it all and start building up some kind of community with real world skills. The whole car culture thing is already finished, it's just a matter of time. There will be a lot of talk about bio diesels (which would currently require 5 times the agricultural land available to the UK just for making fuel if it were to replace the petrol consumption in the UK now) and other such nonsense. We cannot switch life, as currently lived by the majority of people in the UK, straight over to any alternative without a complete restructure of every aspect of modern life (which will basically mean much less energy consumption and localised living).
gristle
Well done
26.09.2005 18:40
First off I'm completely amazed by your courageous action. This speaks about a thousand times louder than any written words can say here.
I find it offensive some people's disparaging comments. Some of these are just blatent lies eg. most 2.0 litre cars do 12 mpg (mine does 50mpg and 40mpg around town). Others seem to be based on naive understanding of our society and the struggle to change it. This is perhaps summed up in Haw Haw's attitude "I have more faith in the human ability to see reason". The fact that this assertion is based on "faith" rather than reason itself is insightful. We tend to put our trust in faith when reason points leads to conclusions we'd rather not hear. I suspect the conclusion Haw Haw wishes to avoid is that changing our society will inevitably involve conflict.
Lets be clear. There is no shortage of rational and scientific argument about the environment. From the broad scientific consensus on global warming, the IPCC, thousands of books and regular magazines (eg. the Ecologist) and even TV and radio programmes the conclusion is the same. We should massively reduce the amount of fossil fuel we burn as soon as we can. The problem is that those in power choose to rely on faith, like Haw Haw, rather than mountains of evidence and scientific reasoning. Their faith is, future technology will solve all our problems. Such faith leads to real world actions like the current idiotic plans to widen the M1.
More and more reasoning will not affect those who choose to rely on faith instead.
So the struggle for change is not a battle of ideas. The struggle a straight power battle. Between those who's acts are based on convenient faith against those who's are based on reason. Internally it's a battle to overcome our own fears because those in power are immensely powerful and extremley violent.
The significance of Rene's action is that he has acted in a very courageous way. Such an act is more courageous than most of us will ever do. Maybe that's the real reason why some people wish to diss him. A safe and easy risk free life is pretty much guaranteed for most if we simply do what we're told. We're allowed to opine from of a computer keyboard. But going out and actually doing something is a very different matter.
ctc
great report
03.10.2005 17:19
Bipolar *and* manic depressive eh?! And guilty without guilt, I like that too :)
Good luck!
Pippa
Homepage:
http://incurable-hippie.blogspot.com
Well done
05.10.2005 20:12
Community service, they'll probably make you tidy a car park!
Dave
e-mail:
dave7bevan@hotmail.com
Misguided and criminal
17.01.2006 18:47
By the way your quoted mpg figures for discoveries are incorrect also the vehicle can carry 7 people and run on biodiesel
Your a otal prat, this probably wont get posted but whjat the hell, How much unneccesary environmental damage did you cause with the spray paint ie painting something that was already painted and damaging vehicles which have already consumed valuable resources and will consume more now to be repaired.
Ian
Do you just accept everything that you read?
19.01.2006 22:14
Because it is well built it doesn't disintegrate in six years so the power used to build is dispersed over a much greater time period and like Landrovers and most 4x4'sa lot of the old ones are still around, unlike fiesta's mondeos vectra's ad infinitum, and as more energy is used building it then it will ever consume during its lifetime this must also be a good thing.
As to fuel consumption, well my other car is a 2005 Mini Cooper, at 1600 cc it struggles most of the time to reach 30 mpg and colleagues also find theirs often drops to 27 -28mpg. which co-incidently is about the same as my Gas Guzzling 4x4.
So, my justification is that over its lifetime a large 4x4 is probably at least as eficient as a mini if not more so and as already mentioned when the government actually giving some proper encouragement to us 4x4 diesel drivers by reducing the tax on bio diesel we will be far more eco friendly than even drivers of hybrids and just about any other vehicle on the road.
It don't condone criminal damage of any kind against anybody but as somehow in your mind there seems to be some connection to violence and saving the world can I suggest you get down to your local BMW Mini garage and put a few of them out of action the world needs more eco friendly bio diesel 4x4's not small cars.
Keith
Keith
THUGS
07.02.2009 12:48
i am involved in a national response network called 4x4 repsonse, we attend emergency call out by doctors, police, ambulance and fire crews in times of adverse weather, yes... i know that my landrover defender only does 24 MPG on a run, but can you imagine trying to get an electric smart car through a flooded river, or through a 4ft snow drift. maybe you should think a little more about this sort of think. if i went to my local dealer to buy a new land rover (by the way, all our 4x4's are privatley owned and maintained, i would be horrified if it had been damaged in this way, also, please think about this, you were trapped by snow, and neede emergency medical attention... who do you think you would call if there were no 4x4's? idiot.
Anon
Homepage:
http://www.4x4response.info