Chaser Safety and Responsibility suggestions

[Glen Romine]

I don't think there are many chasers around who haven't driven over the speed limit a little bit to try and get in position for a storm, or even just tooling around town. The difference is when you cross over into reckless driving, which if you want to get into legal terms varies by state. Check your favorite chase states here:

http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/laws.html

If you must engage in reckless driving behavior in order to stick with a storm - you are endangering the lives of those around you in more ways than one. First off, the local police shouldn't have to be dealing with you instead of the weather event and their local community as you have now become the greatest hazard in the area. Second, if you can't catch up to a storm within the limits of reckless driving - accept the fact that you made a mistake in your chase approach and either find another storm that you can catch up to or cut your losses and call it a day. If you want to get in close to a tornado you should expect that this is going to make it much more difficult to avoid falling behind - you paid a price for getting in close - don't make the rest of us pay too. Is that really so much to ask?

Glen

 

[David Schuttler]

I don't think there are many chasers around who haven't driven over the speed limit a little bit to try and get in position for a storm, or even just tooling around town. The difference is when you cross over into reckless driving, which if you want to get into legal terms varies by state. Check your favorite chase states here:

http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/laws.html

If you must engage in reckless driving behavior in order to stick with a storm - you are endangering the lives of those around you in more ways than one. First off, the local police shouldn't have to be dealing with you instead of the weather event and their local community as you have now become the greatest hazard in the area. Second, if you can't catch up to a storm within the limits of reckless driving - accept the fact that you made a mistake in your chase approach and either find another storm that you can catch up to or cut your losses and call it a day. If you want to get in close to a tornado you should expect that this is going to make it much more difficult to avoid falling behind - you paid a price for getting in close - don't make the rest of us pay too. Is that really so much to ask?

Glen

One problem IMO is it is difficult for some to cut their loses if they have become more profit driven.

Can we start another post that we can guess how many post until this gets locked?

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I don't think there are many chasers around who haven't driven over the speed limit a little bit to try and get in position for a storm, or even just tooling around town. The difference is when you cross over into reckless driving, which if you want to get into legal terms varies by state. Check your favorite chase states here:

http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/laws.html

Glen

Interesting to see how different some laws are from state to state (like what constitute "reckless" driving, what exactly a "speed limit" is, etc)... For example:

Except in a work zone or school zone Pennsylvania doesn't allow radar or laser tickets for less than 6 over the limit (or less than 11 over a limit less than 55 MPH), and only State Police can use radar or laser.

In Rhode Island, Texas, and Utah driving faster than the speed limit is prima facie evidence of unreasonable speed. One can argue in court that one was exceeding the speed limit but should not be convicted because the speed was safe (when they accept this argument, judges will likely want to see evidence beyond a defendant's claim that he was driving safely).

EDIT: Not much need for locking this thread since everything seems within the bounds of the ToS.

 

[Eric Treece]

This has been a very interesting thread to follow. I think alot of valid points have been made and at times I have been waiting to see gun play at high noon at Alsups. Bottom line is, we all know right from wrong. Every person that has responded to, or read this thread has driven over the speed limit chasing a storm or going to the grocery store to get chips for the game. We have done it before........we will do it again. And in saying that I am not advocating in any way that we go driving around police barricades just to get around them or driving thru farmers fields or tailgating some poor 65 year old granny that is white knuckled scared to death. We ALL know those are wrong. It is just plain common sense. Unless I have missed something and it was already mentioned, I have been watching tornado video on network and cable tv since I was in elementary school. I have seen some sort of reckless driving in one form or another in nearly EVERY storm special I watch. And considering I was in elementary school back in the mid 70's, that would include some of the very people I admire and am thankful for in the research that they did to get the theories and facts to come together so that when a chase day does arrive, most of us are not driving aimlessly down highway 183 on the back side of the dry line watching the sun set. I just watched specials on National Geographic that CLEARY SHOWED RESPECTED (maybe even nonrespected to some) CHASERS doing what many would consider "yahoo" driving. TLC, Discovery, NG and even the local tv stations all show it at any given time. I thought about this alot today while I was checking my truck out and getting ready for chase season. I thought about all of the stupid things I have done and seen since I started chasing. It is a fact of life and for one person to single out another and call them a yahoo is hypocritical. Pure-plain-simple. What constitutes yahoo behavior and right from wrong? There is a fine line there that every single one of us need to pay very close attention to. Some day it WILL come to a head. It is almost certainly inevitable. This is an extremely fast growing hobby and the more it is publicly viewed on tv, the more people are going to become interested in our sport. Shane brought up when the Chaser Convention was just a little gathering at a house in Lakewood Colorado..........dude, you nailed it........that was awesome!! And since then look how it went from that to where it is now. It is doing that for a reason. It is going to keep growing whether we like it or not. What scares me is that the more popular it becomes the more radical yahoo's will become more and more numerous. I hope and pray that the Government doesn't get involved. We will debate this every way from Sunday, but when it gets right down to it, we can only watch our own self and do what we feel is right from wrong.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Great points Eric and Mike H. storm chasers will be chasers and take what it is necessary to get from point A to point B. Being lawful doing it is sometimes breached by chasers but overall...how many incidents/accidents are caused by chasers as compared to the general public?? My guess is way fewer...and the reason is that chasers prepare for changes and are more aware. This awareness is that roads are bad and other people may or may not be watching what they are doing much less them being aware of changes. So before we can sit around this offseason and piss and moan about things, maybe things really are not all that bad. Then dredging up things from May 1993, that is just plain lunacy and has no bearing on 2006. Now lets get out there and chase darn it. Saturday is maybe that chance...and yes there is always such thing as an alternate route !!

 

[J.B. Dixon]

Wow......7 pages later and I'm finally here.

I just had two words to add to this topic, then I think I can say I've said enough about it.....

Common. Freaking. Sense.

Okay, three words. Honestly it was nice to meet Chuck Doswell, and the talk was nice. Someting to think about for the attendees there in Denver: Yes, he was pretty much preaching to the choir. But everyone in that room has been guilty of a certain level of carelessness, including Chuck, as he openly admitted. My moment from the 2005 season is immortalized on Hollingshead's May 10, 2005 chase post on his website. Congratulations, J.B.....you beat the RR Xing arm from coming down on you!! It hit me listening to The Doz....yeah, probably pretty stupid move on my part. But it never hurts to hear it again. Yeah, we could've sat through another forecasting talk, but it was pretty light-hearted, with an important message, and I thought it capped off the day nicely.

Just do good out there, folks. It's really pretty simple. Nuff said.