Locate an SUV. In towns and cities, you won’t have to walk far to find one. Target posh / middle-class areas.
Unscrew the cap on the tire valve. This is usually very easy to find on the wheel. Usually, you turn the cap to the left to unscrew it, right to tighten it. Remember: righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.
To get the air out of the tyre, there must be something pushing down on the pin located in the center of the valve. Drop a small bean (we like green lentils, but you can experiment with couscous, bits of gravel, etc) inside the valve cap. Replace the cap, screwing it on with a few turns until you hear air hissing out. Even if it’s only hissing out a little bit, that’s enough - it will deflate slowly. The whole process should take about 10 seconds.
Print this leaflet (at home, in an internet cafe, at the library, wherever) and leave it under the windscreen wipers, so that the owner is aware that the car is unusable and gets an explanation as to why this has been done.
When you’re done, anonymously let the local press know what you’ve done, where you’ve done it and why. You can use a free secure email service like Protonmail or Tutanota.
Send a report to tyreextinguishers@riseup.net so we can keep track! Tell us roughly where it happened and how many SUVs you have disarmed. Join the Telegram group for updates.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Here’s a video demonstration.
Other tips:
If you like, practice on a bicycle tyre first.
Work under cover of darkness.
Bring some friends. Split into pairs to avoid conspicuously large groups.
Hybrids and electric cars are fair game. We cannot electrify our way out of the climate crisis - there are not enough rare earth metals to replace everyone’s car and the mining of these metals causes suffering. Plus, the danger to other road users still stands, as does the air pollution (PM 2.5 pollution is still produced from tyres and brake pads).
Avoid: Cars clearly used for people with disabilities, traders’ cars (even if they’re large), minibuses and normal-sized cars.
Writing your representative(s) about e.g. downtown restrictions of vehicular use (within reason); heavier tax on SUVs than on regular passenger cars; or if they are hybrids/BEVs, make them exempt from things like tax incentives if they happen to be SUVs and/or beyond a reasonable mass limit.
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This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.
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Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that.
Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn’t choose car-centric life out of free will.
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Writing your representative(s) about e.g. downtown restrictions of vehicular use (within reason); heavier tax on SUVs than on regular passenger cars; or if they are hybrids/BEVs, make them exempt from things like tax incentives if they happen to be SUVs and/or beyond a reasonable mass limit.
None of these things are activism, with maybe a carve-out for writing your elected representatives depending on what political culture you are in.
What we’re asking is what kinds of activism can help mitigate the damage or change the trends of car use in urban areas?