Kevin Rimcoski
EF3
Good point, Warren
I'm just seeing a lot of gray are everywhere
I'm just seeing a lot of gray are everywhere
The age old problem with those who want to chase like morons for absolutely no legitimate reason is that people forget that they are doing it on public roads, not a closed course. I like watching extreme sports like the X-Games because it's a crazy pursuit in a closed arena. If someone wants to drop a snowmobile on top of them, so be it.
This is about the other people who use the highways (like your family and friends) and the public servants who have to risk their lives to come and haul you to the hospital or the morgue. I'm at a lost trying to understand any argument supporting such negligent behavior.
W.
Warren, I respect you as a veteran chaser with far more experience than most of us here. With that being said, here's my issue with this post. You've highlighted a wide array of beefs you have with one particular chaser whom you blame almost exclusively for the current state of chasing affairs.As someone who has chased as a business for well over 25 years, I have to disagree about Mr. Timmer.
He has dominated the media for over 8 years and he is the face and spokesperson for storm chasing. He’s had multiple opportunities to speak up. He could refund the money he’s begged for and denounce the “getting too close” for research based chasing. He could move on to becoming a top notch and genuine researcher. He’s obviously a sharp, aggressive guy who could do a lot for meteorology.
Don’t hold your breath.
You can thank the lame ass media for drinking the Kool-Aid and their failure to present any other side of storm chasing, e.g., the bulk of responsible chasers and spotters. According to the media, we are all out of control kooks who line the roads and our pockets by deceptive methods. The Weather Channel is mostly to blame. However, they too eventually learned their lesson after their own crew was caught up in the stupidity / invincibility craze that we now see on a regular basis.
The current problem DID NOT stem from responsible storm chaser portrayals or magical unicorns. Some people might be uncomfortable dissecting a hero, but you cannot ignore reality or shift the blame to some other entity. I talk to so many writers and media people who are simply spineless and afraid to tackle reality or the individual who sparked the current problems.
In the course of my work, I'm constantly involved in media, television, Internet media, EMS, Universities (lectures) advertisers, chasers, spotters and the list goes on and on. Many of you are aware of the serious issues I've had with authorities and commercial interests over the years when I was mistaken for Mr. Timmer or when I was somehow lumped into the same group of buffoons. I've lost several lucrative contracts and it's all but impossible now days to find any sponsors or advertising gigs because no one wants to risk a PR nightmare over what they see on television or envision storm chasing to be. I remind everyone that national commercials featuring storm chaser(s) have been pulled from television after they were deemed “insensitive.” To most chasers this does not matter and I fully understand, but the poop is beginning to seep down to everyone and some chasers are becoming detached from history and forget who initiated this mess. This is when people start pointing fingers and blaming each other as we have recently seen in ST discussions
For example: If I indeed had "life saving" research capabilities or data, I would fill my rolling coffin with the nation's top researchers to present my conclusions as soon as possible. I would not fill my vehicle with camera crews, Jim Cantore, girlfriends and buddies. If I thought for a second that the research I've been gathering / claiming with my toy rockets and mystery radar had the potential to indeed save lives, I would focus my entire life on it, not spending countless hours generating income from non-scientific projects. I remind everyone that Mr. Timmer has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars based partially on the underlying premise of such life saving research. He WILL be held accountable for this someday.
So why does all this matter? We have an entire generation of new chasers who are bewitched into believing there is this fantasy world of mouth-watering storm chasing opportunities. They see an unchallenged methodology to deceive the public in order to make money and chase without scrutiny or law enforcement intervention. There is no argument that new chasers are popping up all over who want to use some illogical scientific project to legitimize their pursuits. People are emulating what they have witnessed on TV and think it's legitimate because the media approves it. They are energized and fearless while getting way too close for no actual scientific or heroic purpose. So who does this sound like?
Fake it till you make it.
W.
I wont speak for Warren, Ryan, but my tears aren't crocodile tears--they're good-ol fashioned honest real tears *sob* Now get the heck off my roads and let me chase in peace.
Well, fair enough, I don't mean to say that veteran chasers aren't legitimately annoyed by how the hobby has changed. Sir Edmund Hillary was quite vocal about how frustrated he was with what a circus climbing Everest is today. But in my mind, to a great extent, that kind of thing is not avoidable. Chasing is popular now. Sure, that can be frustrating, but why spend so much energy trying to figure out who to yell at? In my mind, even with the hordes, I'm glad I'm chasing today and not 30 years ago. It's safer (live, high resolution radar products, much safer vehicles, phone communications systems that work anywhere, GPS mapping, GPS emergency services integration, and on and on and on), it's more fun (infinitely better cameras, 1080p video cameras bundled into your phone, freaking cinema quality movie cameras available at price points that a normal person could save up and buy, smart drones, a community that can share and talk to each other easily more than once a year, public interest in what we do, and on and on and on), and it's easier (endless free data products, much better global and mesoscale forecasting models, computers, phones, GPS, and on and on and on...). I don't see today's chasing as a crap show at all. Yeah, we aren't all the special little snowflakes we used to be and some of our little monopolies on B-list fame or media licensing have evaporated or been supplanted by others, but that's the way it goes. Yeah, some guys are chasing in ways that are spectacularly, hilariously calculated to create a caricature of the worst cliches that people will pay them good money to be. Yeah, there are so many peeps doing it now that you have to factor them in when chasing. But does any of that make the sky any less magnificent when you're looking up the barrel of a dryline mothership in Kansas? It doesn't for me.
You probably have friends and parents who would be devastated, and you will also potentially draw additional scrutiny and ire from first responders and legislators. And at that point the consequences broaden well beyond the confines of your vehicle.
When it comes to actually writing legislation - you guessed it - NOBODY CARES.
I think the younger generation says "I"m going to live how I want, and as long as it doesn't impact you, you shouldn't care." Unsafe chasing impacts nobody but the chaser, so why should anyone else care?
Was that a rhetorical question? Cause so far, we've seen the following answers:
1) It puts EM and responders at risk having to save the butts of the unsafe chaser
2) It puts you at risk if you are on the same road, due to reckless driving
3) It makes LE more likely to paint all chasers with the same brush and give all of us a harder time.
4) It casts a bad light over all chasers so that public opinion as a whole is lowered.
I'm sure I missed a few...
I don't blame it all on a younger generation but I do think society views things a lot different today than yesterday. The tolerance bar is much higher today than it was 20 years ago. In the early days of chasing, if you did anything stupid (I should know) you were called on it right away and it made you a better chaser. And this was all done w/o social media. Now days, it's a free for all and anything goes including deceiving people on a large scale. That totally blows my mind as we use to say. I do have to agree that no one likely cares about yesterday's chaser convergence. By July, it will be old news. Chasing moves around too much to generally piss off one county sheriff for too long. I do believe that a major event involving chasers killing someone, or contributing to deaths, will change things dramatically. We use to wait for (and dread) the day when the first chasers would be killed. Now the waiting has begun for an event that indeed changes chasing, if it does at all.
W.
Ryan brought up the Everest analogy earlier, and I think it's a great one cause it predicts what is going to happen with chasing. The Everest tragedy in 97 was the result of guides (with clients) pushing the limits due to the financial and reputation pressures of the biz, ignoring safe practices and therefore a bunch of climbers died. May have caused some guide services to tighten up on some of their safety practices, but it didn't prevent the same mistakes from happening again. And it certainly didn't dissuade the masses from wanting to summit--it took an earthquake to put an end to this season. Same thing will happen in chasing, it's inevitable with all the tours being run. The bigger question is what happens when massive traffic congestion blocks off the only escape route, and an EF-5 mows over hundreds (if not thousands) of chasers. I think that will happen eventually, maybe not this year or in the next 10 years, but it will happen. That will prompt some massive hindsight discussion, but hard to say where exactly it would lead.
Unsafe chasing impacts nobody but the chaser?? Really???? So I guess drinking and driving impacts nobody but the drunk huh? Pull that wool over someone else's eyes rdale.
Was that a rhetorical question? Cause so far, we've seen the following answers:
1) It puts EM and responders at risk having to save the butts of the unsafe chaser
2) It puts you at risk if you are on the same road, due to reckless driving
3) It makes LE more likely to paint all chasers with the same brush and give all of us a harder time.
4) It casts a bad light over all chasers so that public opinion as a whole is lowered.
I'm sure I missed a few...