Chasing and legislation - law review article

[Robert Dewey]

There has to be another way to tie severe weather tightly to an interesting legal topic...

I think this is probably the most interesting chase-related legal topic that exists, which is probably why it generates so much discussion. It would be interesting if you do choose this topic and shared the thoughts of your professor and/or other students once completed. A lot of people throw around opinions here on ST, but it would be nice to hear from someone with political / legislative experience beyond arm-chairing via Wikipedia.

 

[tom hanlon]

There has to be another way to tie severe weather tightly to an interesting legal topic...

I think severe weather might have a number of interesting legal relationships to civil law, not so much criminal law but civil law.

Car rental and hail damage:
I always wondered when a car rental company is going to look at a youtube video of a chaser in a rental car in grapefruit size hail , saying on camera "glad I got the CDW and the extra insurance" and then take a look at the rental agreement and try to get a chaser to pay for the damage.


Crop insurance and severe weather.

NWS liability for reporting or failing to report or warn.

Bogus reports.

Financial products based on hurricane predictions, I mean the price of oil futures is hugely affected when the gulf is under the gun. Might be some legal interaction with those.

Insurance regulations for condos built on barrier islands. I thought the reaction of the insurance companies was sane "we do not want to insure them anymore" the state insurance regulators have some say though. I bet there is something interesting there.

Or the handling of storm surge damage claims as to wether it was flood or wind damage, that is interesting.

Are schools required to track Severe warnings ?

Just some thoughts.

--
Tom

 

[Jennifer Bankier]

Law Journals and Severe Weather Topics

As a retired law professor, the list of potential topics in the last post is quite good.

I don't think that a licensing law is likely to be feasible to draft ... there would need to be criteria for licensing storm chasers, and it's hard to see what these would be. (Any ideas? ... though I'd hate to encourage such a bad idea ... my own view is that drafting criteria would be very difficult, given the broad range of circumstances in which chasers acquire the necessary skills. And even skilled chasers can get caught in a chaser convergence [or a muddy field: current situation in SD] to the extent that's a problem.)

(By the way: American law journals are largely run by student editors [prestigious for job hunting] and you get to be a journal editor by writing article(s): hence, all across the U.S. there are significant number of students looking for new topics in *every* U.S. law school. Given the resulting quest for topics, I'm surprised this hasn't come up before.)

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

As a retired law professor, the list of potential topics in the last post is quite good.

Excuse me professor; but aren't liberties an issue here too?

Isn't this licensing notion taking 'hind ninny' to the real issue?
That is - that keeping people from storm chasing is a direct infringement of personal freedom to move about the country as they choose.

For that matter, illegal aliens get to move around and get jobs and collect govt benefits (sorry for the gratuitous comparison). Yet a storm chaser can now be told (*as proposed*) that they need permission and licensing (and 'fees paid') to chase and photo a storm. If there is a quarter to be made and a means to create 'the image' that govt is acting responsibly (by/thru the media's involvement telling us what we are supposed to believe) - they will snap at the chance at every opportunity. Its our freedom to move about that isn't equitable to driving privileges - it is not the same thing. The other side of the coin to this action, is that they may well have people must be licensed just to ride a train or a plane. Government that is looking over everybody's shoulder all of the time is no longer a state of freedom. Especially if it directly affects and hinders common freedoms.

Mind you - no one has even been hurt yet - but they are racing to this endeavor as if thousands have died due to a chasing accident.

Thank you "TWC"...
(Yes; I mean that will possible insincerity)

 

[Ryan Moats]

As a retired law professor, the list of potential topics in the last post is quite good.

I don't think that a licensing law is likely to be feasible to draft ... there would need to be criteria for licensing storm chasers, and it's hard to see what these would be. (Any ideas? ... though I'd hate to encourage such a bad idea ... my own view is that drafting criteria would be very difficult, given the broad range of circumstances in which chasers acquire the necessary skills. And even skilled chasers can get caught in a chaser convergence [or a muddy field: current situation in SD] to the extent that's a problem.)

(By the way: American law journals are largely run by student editors [prestigious for job hunting] and you get to be a journal editor by writing article(s): hence, all across the U.S. there are significant number of students looking for new topics in *every* U.S. law school. Given the resulting quest for topics, I'm surprised this hasn't come up before.)

Well it should be easy for them, once people started getting hut in being a spectator to street racing, it won't be long till they start writing painful expensive spectating a weather event to non official capacity. Official capacity i imagine would be the obscured thing in the law that be hard to enforce.