the fed up of motorists in Caen

During the night of Monday to Tuesday, December 17, several vehicles were targeted in the streets of Caen. On the windshields, an anonymous letter explains why their car was sabotaged in this way. But among motorists, the message is having difficulty getting across.

This is not the first time that motorists have found their vehicle with a deflated wheel. Tuesday morning is a bad surprise for Louis*, resident of Boulevard Leroy in Caen. As he leaves his house, he notices that the left front tire of his car is flat. “I said to myself, it’s weird, because I hadn’t moved it for four days”. The paper left on his windshield gives him an explanation.

In the leaflet left on the windshield, the message is clear. The people who submitted this ticket want to alert the owners of these vehicles about their CO2 emissions. “This use is poisoning our environment. The fossil energy it requires is overheating our oceans and destroying our atmosphere” can we read on this leaflet. The authors also question the “high consumption of metal, plastic and electronic resources just for your personal comfort.”

We must put out of harm’s way what emits CO². Today, not tomorrow. We can’t wait. It’s just self-defense.

Anonymous message left on the windshield of vehicles with deflated tires

Louis is not an isolated case in the neighborhood. According to the St-Michel garage, rue de l’Arquette, seven people contacted them for a deflated tire, sometimes two, between Tuesday and Wednesday. SUVs, but not only. “This time, there are definitely hybrid cars, not necessarily diesels, and not the vehicles that pollute the most.”

“The people impacted are nurses, doctors, people who have to drop off their children at daycare,” replies the garage employee.

Louis did not need his car that morning, but he is more than annoyed by this militant action, which, for him, is the wrong target.

I travel by bike all the time. I only occasionally take my car, which is not a 4X4, but a hybrid. There are old diesels which pollute much more.

Louis, a resident of the Right Bank district of Caen.

No costs for Louis this time, to whom the garage lent an electric inflator. But the bill could have been steep, as the St-Michel garage points out. “In general, insurance companies cover a deflated tire, but assistance is limited to 1 or 2 interventions of this type per year. Once this limit is exceeded, depending on the contracts, repairing the vehicle can cost up to 240 euros per person.”

Christelle G.* was the victim of this bad joke last May, and she was very scared: “I didn’t realize it right away. Arriving at a roundabout, my car sped away. I almost had an accident.” A big scare which cost him 700 euros for his two deflated rear tires. This time, no message was left on her windshield, but for Christelle G., there is no doubt. It’s the same kind of action.

I can understand their cause, but it put me in danger. I could have had an accident. And that doesn’t help the climate problem.

Christelle G. victim of deflated tires in May 2024

When contacted, the environmental activists from Action Rébellion affirmed that they were not the instigators of this action. “We are not attacking people or property, it is not in our consensus of action. We rather target decision-makers and businesses.”

For Camille, spokesperson for the group, SUVs pollute during production and consumption, that’s certain, but there are other ways to act.

As for the message left on the leaflet, “if the law does not punish you, then we will”he is causing a lot of ink to flow on social networks.