Re: The choice for me...Disco Free
Originally posted by Susan Strom
Lightbars: Against
My personal thoughts...
*I'm against using a device that, whether intended or not, impersonates authorities. Here is an example of illegal use that's currently going on right now: Criminals install lightbars on their SUVs to drive along the Mexican border impersonating border patrol at night...to rob, mug, assault, kidnap/extort money from border crossers or their families. I don't like how lightbars confuse the public.
Don't you think that is rather unfair comparing people with AMBER lightbars (regardless of what they are using them for) can be compared to the few that are slapping on red and blues for the specific purpose of doing what you stated and is a far stretch. Criminals can use almost ANY thing to do what they will, should everyone else not use whatever item because of that? That would be like saying everyone that is carrying around a video camera is going to appear as someone out peeping tom.
Amber light bars no more impersonate authorities than wearing a clown suit. I don't know about AZ, but I have never seen a police unit anywhere with all amber lights. Now if you would have said we are impersonating some sort of contruction vehicle, a streetsweeper, a wide load escort vehicle, the local cable tv truck, the radio station promo vehicle, the wrecker down the street, etc etc etc....maybe. Quite frankly, IMHO anyone that sees all amber lights flashing and thinks, OMG A COP is a complete idiot! They should be thinking, hmm some type of potential hazard ahead? Maybe I should pay closer attention while I drive through here.
*Lightbars in stormchasing attract too much attention
Will agree they do attract attention some would prefer not to have, but so can many other activities in storm chasing. Just a number of vehicles parked on the side of the road and people out with a half a dozen tripods and camera attracts a pretty fair amount of attention as well.
Only if your using illegal colors. Ambers are LEGAL in almost every state, with only a few states specifying specific conditions
*Affects perception of chasers - can look yahoo-ish and non-law abiding in the public eye
I COMPLETE DISAGREE with that statement. I challenge anyone to go out on the the plains and take a random poll of 100 people in "the general public" and come up with the result that they think chasers with lightbars look like yahoos and don't abide by the laws. Most people in the general public don't even know the term "yahoo" in the context we chasers use it.
*Factory hazard lights are sufficient \"for safety\". If a chaser or photographer needs an overhead lightbar to alert passing motorists, they are not far enough off the road.
Sometimes, maybe, othertimes they are not. They also attract lots of "good samaritans" that think your broke down and pull over to not only interupt whatever you were doing, but now we have yet another person parked on the side of the road with hazards going. And from experience I can state that many times these "helpful" people often will park in a position putting themself and you in greater danger.
*I'm not a big fan of something that attracts criticism to the chase community, or creates public perception (whether intended or not) that chasers liberally interpret laws or use illegal (or borderline illegal) devices for their own personal purposes.
Ok, well then lets get rid of all up close video of anything a storm destroys, in fact, lets ban all video that shows ANYTHING being destroyed. We will all have to caravan in a BARE minimum of vehicles during the next chase convergence, lest any more stories like the KS one last year come out about "chasers" getting in the way of responders. We need to also get rid of ANY chasers that are high profile in the media, as they will inevitably draw some critisicm to the chasing community just by being visible and out there and on TV a lot. I probably could come up with a whole list of things that should be banned that could potentially bring some critisism to chasing. How about....chasing itself?
Point is, doesn't matter WHAT your doing in life, SOMEONE is going to criticise about it. Someone is always going to bitch about something your doing, no matter WHAT it is.
Funny thing I said to another chaser on here the other day. In all my years of chasing on the plains, I can't ever recall a single time anyone from the public in general has EVER had anything bad to say to me as a chaser. Sure some would say stuff like, you must be crazy to do that, or something along those lines, but not in a derogatory or disrespectful way. NEVER. Comments are always either along the positive, nice or disinterested side from the public that I have ever encountered.
Now chasers on the other hand are a different matter, I have had PLENTY of negative things said to me about various pieces of equipment I might chose to use, whatever method I choose to use to chase, what video I decided to put on the news, almost anything really right down to slanderous accusations and lies. And THIS came from people in the chasing community, not the public. So I think whatever perceived problems with whatever lights someone is using, in this case lightbars, is largely only a perceived problem in the heads of storm chasers themselves and NOT in the heads of 99% of John Q. Public out there.
My experience has told me that in the overall scheme of things in the world, most people could care less about storm chasers, what we do or how we go about doing it, UNLESS there is severe weather in the area they are in and then they seem happy that we are out there watching things.
Anyway, unpopular take I am sure, but that's what I think. If anyone REALLY wants to have a say in how another person chases and what they use to do it.....start sending them a check to fund their chasing every year.
Sorry, I was going to bow out of this, but comparing chasers that use lights to crimininal and LEO impersonators inferiates me!
