Chasing and legislation - law review article

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Tanner Bailey

Hey everyone,

The due date for topic submission for our Law Review is rapidly approaching, and given the recent and not-so-recent debate on here, I thought a novel idea might be an analysis of the feasibility of storm-chasing legislation, since it's an oft-mentioned boogeyman. Can anyone refer me to any scholarly articles that have been written on the subject? Keyword searching is getting me absolutely nowhere, but I'm not sure if this is due to the specificity of the topic or rather its novelty. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
Tanner Bailey said:
Hey everyone,

The due date for topic submission for our Law Review is rapidly approaching, and given the recent and not-so-recent debate on here, I thought a novel idea might be an analysis of the feasibility of storm-chasing legislation, since it's an oft-mentioned boogeyman. Can anyone refer me to any scholarly articles that have been written on the subject? Keyword searching is getting me absolutely nowhere, but I'm not sure if this is due to the specificity of the topic or rather its novelty. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I think everyone agrees that it is not feasible nor a fair and reasonable bit of would-be legislation.
 
Derek Weston said:
I think everyone agrees that it is not feasible nor a fair and reasonable bit of would-be legislation.
Click to expand...

Facially, I think legislation if carefully constructed could be passed. I'm certainly not advocating it, and this is without having done any research, but I can't think of any barriers off the top of my head...well within the legislative power of the state, there's an enhanced interest in safety during severe weather outbreaks, etc, etc.

Again, I can't stress enough that I'm not advocating this. I just think it would be fun to merge my two primary interests.

I'm definitely open to other ways the law and stormchasing, or severe weather in general, could interact.
 
Tanner Bailey said:
Facially, I think legislation if carefully constructed could be passed. I'm certainly not advocating it, and this is without having done any research, but I can't think of any barriers off the top of my head...well within the legislative power of the state, there's an enhanced interest in safety during severe weather outbreaks, etc, etc.

Again, I can't stress enough that I'm not advocating this. I just think it would be fun to merge my two primary interests.

I'm definitely open to other ways the law and stormchasing, or severe weather in general, could interact.
Click to expand...

oh, no doubt. Plenty of dumb legislature out there. (even if it isn't feasible in application)
 
lol chaser legistlation, another one of the classic annual stormtrack topics.

They can't regulate storm chasing, they never will regulate storm chasing and they couldn't enforce it even if they did. It is a dead topic.
Not poking fun at you Tanner btw since this is actually the first intelligent and purposeful inquiry or post I've ever seen on storm chasing legislation. I just think its funny how so many of the classic topics are popping up lately.
I seriously doubt anybody has actually written a formal document on the feasibility of regulating chasing. I'd love to see a paper that points out the numerous reasons why it can't be regulated now or in the forseeable future so people will stop worrying about it. You'd be doing a great service to the chasing community if you can publish or post a document pointing that out lol.
 
btw it probably wasn't smart for me to put this out of congresses reach. I am constantly amazed by the level of stupidity displayed by our government and they probably are capable of coming up with something as ill founded as chaser legislation so I shouldn't dismiss them so easily. Never under estimate the power of stupidity lol.
 
Tanner Bailey said:
Facially, I think legislation if carefully constructed could be passed. I'm certainly not advocating it, and this is without having done any research, but I can't think of any barriers off the top of my head...well within the legislative power of the state, there's an enhanced interest in safety during severe weather outbreaks, etc, etc.

Again, I can't stress enough that I'm not advocating this. I just think it would be fun to merge my two primary interests.

I'm definitely open to other ways the law and stormchasing, or severe weather in general, could interact.
Click to expand...

In the snow belt there are local ordinances prohibiting parking on the streets during heavy snow storms. It seems feasible that they could pass an ordinance prohibiting stopping, standing, and parking on the road sides of rural highways during high risk storms. Although that isn't directly legislating storm chasing it would certainly be an inconvenience to chasers and could be used as an attempt to address the source of some of the congestion on the roads. I think legislation like that may be more likely than something that mentions storm chasing directly.
 
What do you mean by "feasibility" ?

Any group of idiots can pass a law, and perhaps convince the police to support it, and potentially the courts might even uphold it.

So it is of course feasible.

Is it Likely ?

They pass laws out of the need to get votes, or the need to get lobbying money.

I do not see this issue generating either votes or cash for lobbyist.

So... until one of those two factors comes into play. Expect nothing.

--
Tom
 
I meant it in terms of if they do pass some type of legislation it would more likely be something related to the traffic issues rather than the activity of storm chasing itself IMO.
 
My two cents on this is to simply never say never..... It could very well happen in time. Like it has been said in previous posts, our government officials are notorious for doing stupid things. Look at here in Chicago, the beloved (or not so) Mayor Daley has passed more anti-gun laws than you could shake a stick at, and it still hasn't cut down on the number of gun related crimes!! I do not know the exact figures, but the number of deaths just this year alone due to gun violence is staggering. Apparently Daley didn't realize that the lowlifes plying the streets at night, don't give a rats behind about laws! Looks to me like those laws were really effective.... So, it will be interesting to say the least as to if, and when this new "chaser bill" could concievably be drafted and passed, and just how it will be worded.
 
Look at it from the perspective of local residents and local emergency management. This is how politics works: local residents and officials are mad that huge swarms of people are converging on their areas, many driving out of control, blocking roads, and hindering emergency officials from doing their jobs. Said locals complain to their state legislators, who in turn want to get re-elected, so they pass legislation to please their constituents.

There. Political Science .00000000000101 is over.

Some insiders here and elsewhere who are familiar with the OK legislature have admitted that the discussion is underway, and has been to a small degree for a few years.

It sucks, but it is what it is. It might not have been as big a problem had there been more storms on the 19th to spread the masses out a bit, and surely a few selfish fools driving tornado tanks blatantly breaking traffic laws while being filmed by everyone else, didn't help the situation.

Being frightfully ware that our country is going the way it is, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if governments one day had a paid licensure process to be able to officially storm chase.

Think of all the people who watched Stormchasers on Discovery last year, will watch it this year, and are thinking hey, I'm going to read up on how to storm chase and get out there next year. Literally many thousands. So the problems we create are certainly going to get much worse.
 
I think the argument that it would be effectively unenforceable carries little weight (in terms of the law being passed, not in terms of it actually being a worry for chasers); laws like that are passed all the time, first because there's tons of precedent out there stating that a law doesn't have to be effective to be valid, and second because politicians are politicians - many probably don't care about whether the law actually does the job, so long as it gets on the books and they can crow about it during their next election campaign.

Definitely, though, the biggest concern for the near future is probably local rather than state-wide ordinances. There are already several counties known for not being friendly to chasing - it's only a matter of time before one of them tries to put something on the books.

But off the record, whether it actually becomes a law or not, I don't think it should be a great concern. I'm not sure whether there's enough out there for me to write a good 20-30 page scholarly paper about it, but I'll let you all know if I decide to go forward with it.
 
There has to be another way to tie severe weather tightly to an interesting legal topic...
 
It is already quite illegal (as in crime, not civil infraction) to interfere with Emergency Services in pretty much every state I can think of.

It doesn't take much, either, once they show up. Just sayin'

So...be an asset? Or liability?
 
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