Reed Timmer unsafe acts

[JamesCaruso]

maybe forming some sort of chasing certification body that emphasizes safe chasing might help?

Not going to happen. And you wouldn’t want it to.

This topic raises its head every few years, but it’s a non-starter.

 

[James K]

distracted driving

This one is deff an issue (and I'm not doing to call out any one chaser) but I see guys on their livestreams looking at maps/radar/etc (and showing them to the stream-camera) while driving, even at highway speed.
Everytime I see that, its a scary thing. Dangerous (and illeagal here in CO). I've once seen what happens when someone drives while looking at their phone...
Said incident involved a car driving through my neighborhood(and not at the 25mph limit either), driver looking at maps on their phone(obviously not paying attention to the curve in the road), they ended up going off the road, through my yard and t-boning the neighbors car in their driveway (totalling both vehicles). (and this was on a clear sunny day, no ice/snow/etc around)

I am not close friends with Reed, but I know him well enough to know he is not the villain some would like to make him out to be.

Never met Reed myself, but he seems like like s decent guy from some of his videos, plus I've seen posts from people who've met him while chasing saying he is.
I'm deff not calling him out, he's certainly not the only one out there doing dangerous things on the road..
I remember one stream I watched, back in December, the guy driving/chasing(don't remember who) would stop at red lights, then go through, & made some comment about treating red lights as if they were a 4-way stop! (sure there was no traffic around, but...)

The "ultra-super" insanity behavior involved with storm chasing is still in its infancy.

Thats a scary thought .eek. all 'fun & games' til someone gets themselves killed live on YouTube for the world to see.

when I started you had to actually pay attention to the sky.

Even though I'm old, or maybe just old-fashoned... that is something I plan to do, not just to some degree 'read the sky', but also I think seeing clouds in action is interesting.

 

[Mike Potts]

Not going to happen. And you wouldn’t want it to.

This topic raises its head every few years, but it’s a non-starter.

You are right that it is not something I welcome. However if we in the community don't police ourselves, then someone outside will eventually do it to us, and that is something I definitely don't want. All it will take is a few high profile incidents and we could face a real backlash. I'm not talking about anything mandatory, just perhaps a voluntary certifying body that chasers can point to and say they have been trained in safe/best practices. Like when builders meet certain standards that allow their buildings to be certified as energy efficient, ect.

 

[JamesCaruso]

You are right that it is not something I welcome. However if we in the community don't police ourselves, then someone outside will eventually do it to us, and that is something I definitely don't want. All it will take is a few high profile incidents and we could face a real backlash. I'm not talking about anything mandatory, just perhaps a voluntary certifying body that chasers can point to and say they have been trained in safe/best practices. Like when builders meet certain standards that allow their buildings to be certified as energy efficient, ect.

If you are interested in this topic, you can find multiple threads on it here going back decades. Chaser certification is a meaningless concept and it won’t work. People can’t get drivers licenses without being exposed to some safety training, but that doesn’t stop them from speeding or blowing stop signs. So chasers can get “certified” and what’s it going to change?

The physical act of chasing is nothing more than driving. Not sure what else we are going to teach people in that regard. Don’t speed? Don’t blow through stop signs? Don’t speed past people standing on the side of the road? People that need to be told these things, although they are already licensed drivers, are not people that are going to learn or change.

Meanwhile, how do you propose that chasing be controlled such that it is limited only to the “certified”? Again, “chasing” in this context is nothing more than *driving*. So what will the rules be? Only “certified chasers” can be near a storm? How do you define “near” - what radius? Where is the radius drawn from - from the edge of the meso, or from the edge of the forward flank downdraft? If I am not a certified chaser but I want to watch storm structure from 10 miles away, am I allowed to do that? If I am not chasing at all, but my route to work takes me within 5 miles of a supercell, can I still drive to work? Am I allowed to watch a severe warned storm but not a tornado warned storm? Where do you draw the “do not cross” line? And how does the line move as the meso moves? Should law enforcement keep shifting the perimeter as the storm moves? Does law enforcement know enough about storm structure and motion to adequately define the perimeter and control the road network around a storm? This is why I say it’s a non-starter, even IF it were a desirable concept, which I don’t think it is because of the constraints it would impose on chasers and non-chasers alike, all of whom are entitled to free passage on public roadways.

But don’t take my word for it, there’s plenty of ST content on the subject. Here are a few old threads to get you started:

Will chaser congestion and unncessary risk taking lead to anti-chase legislation?

It should though. Not that our consitution means much anymore. In the rush to for national security and to protect everyone our rights are being taken away Call it what you want but Russia, Germany and other countries have done the same and the result is a dictatorship. The media has no clue...

stormtrack.org

May I see your storm chaser license?

Hey all, So in regards to chasers doing foolish things such as blocking the roadway and making it difficult for emergency services to respond, newbie chasers doing all the wrong things, people going out chasing to capture a tornado on their iPhone to get on TWC but not knowing anything about...

stormtrack.org

County Officials Critical of Storm Chasers

It is, frankly, none of your business whether he/she is a professional chaser and how dare you ask for "proof." This is America! Your sole concern is whether a person is breaking the law. If so, they should be ticketed or arrested as any other person would be and as the facts of the situation...

stormtrack.org

 

[Travis Davis]

It's nice to see that his actions have changed over the years. </sarcasm>

On Mothers Day May 8, 2016 he ran a stop sign in his rental car down by Lawton and hit my truck and did significate damage. Everyone was alright, but I though he was an idiot. Limping home to Broken Arrow was awesome.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Reed Timmer, he's a nightcrawler. He's in it for the money, not the science.

Joking aside, the Reed Timmer discussion has been beaten to death. Nothing will change with him. He has been doing what he does for years, eventually it'll catch up to him when his antics leads to him and his team being killed. All we can do is sit aside and watch the shitshow.

 

[Warren Faidley]

It's nice to see that his actions have changed over the years. </sarcasm>

On Mothers Day May 8, 2016 he ran a stop sign in his rental car down by Lawton and hit my truck and did significate damage. Everyone was alright, but I though he was an idiot. Limping home to Broken Arrow was awesome.

Who are you referring to that ran a stop sign and hit your truck?

 

[Mike Potts]

If you are interested in this topic, you can find multiple threads on it here going back decades. Chaser certification is a meaningless concept and it won’t work. People can’t get drivers licenses without being exposed to some safety training, but that doesn’t stop them from speeding or blowing stop signs. So chasers can get “certified” and what’s it going to change?

The physical act of chasing is nothing more than driving. Not sure what else we are going to teach people in that regard. Don’t speed? Don’t blow through stop signs? Don’t speed past people standing on the side of the road? People that need to be told these things, although they are already licensed drivers, are not people that are going to learn or change.

Meanwhile, how do you propose that chasing be controlled such that it is limited only to the “certified”? Again, “chasing” in this context is nothing more than *driving*. So what will the rules be? Only “certified chasers” can be near a storm? How do you define “near” - what radius? Where is the radius drawn from - from the edge of the meso, or from the edge of the forward flank downdraft? If I am not a certified chaser but I want to watch storm structure from 10 miles away, am I allowed to do that? If I am not chasing at all, but my route to work takes me within 5 miles of a supercell, can I still drive to work? Am I allowed to watch a severe warned storm but not a tornado warned storm? Where do you draw the “do not cross” line? And how does the line move as the meso moves? Should law enforcement keep shifting the perimeter as the storm moves? Does law enforcement know enough about storm structure and motion to adequately define the perimeter and control the road network around a storm? This is why I say it’s a non-starter, even IF it were a desirable concept, which I don’t think it is because of the constraints it would impose on chasers and non-chasers alike, all of whom are entitled to free passage on public roadways.

But don’t take my word for it, there’s plenty of ST content on the subject. Here are a few old threads to get you started:

Will chaser congestion and unncessary risk taking lead to anti-chase legislation?

It should though. Not that our consitution means much anymore. In the rush to for national security and to protect everyone our rights are being taken away Call it what you want but Russia, Germany and other countries have done the same and the result is a dictatorship. The media has no clue...

stormtrack.org

May I see your storm chaser license?

Hey all, So in regards to chasers doing foolish things such as blocking the roadway and making it difficult for emergency services to respond, newbie chasers doing all the wrong things, people going out chasing to capture a tornado on their iPhone to get on TWC but not knowing anything about...

stormtrack.org

County Officials Critical of Storm Chasers

It is, frankly, none of your business whether he/she is a professional chaser and how dare you ask for "proof." This is America! Your sole concern is whether a person is breaking the law. If so, they should be ticketed or arrested as any other person would be and as the facts of the situation...

stormtrack.org

I 100% realize that you can't control whether or not someone chases, nor would I want to and free passage of the roads is a right, we agree on that point. I'm only saying that we should consider having a voluntary program that could possibly encourage safer behavior. Nobody would have to take the course, but they could point to it and say, "I know what the best practices are, and I have had exposure to those." Sorry if that isn't coming across clearly. My example of an additional certification in building standards might not be the best.
As far as whether or not this would change any behavior, then I would say that it might. If you have an increased standard in a field, then generally speaking people gravitate to wanting to achieve that standard. I concede that reminding people to drive safe may not work for all of them, but I gotta believe that preventing a tragic accident is worth the effort of trying. Especially since this would only be a voluntary program, with zero impact on the freedom to chase.

Thanks for the thread links, I will check them out.

 

[Warren Faidley]

You are not going to prevent another tragedy. I do believe it's honorable that some chasers have tried to call out and circumvent bad behavior. Chuck Doswell tried very hard while he was still active in the chase community. I tired for several years by calling out specific individuals when bad / false behavior cast a negative light on chasing, but gave up after social media flamed me and fanboys made death threats against me. I'm expecting more very soon, since this thread has spilled over into social media.

This toxic behavior extends way beyond dangerous traffic violations. For example, chasers renting vehicles so they can drive through Godzilla hail live on YouTube. Recently, chasers (not Reed) were streaming live as they walked through the tornado debris filming victims.

Eventually, I believe YouTube will pull the plug on live streams featuring bad or illegal behavior. That will stop a lot of this instantly.

 

[Jason N]

Pandora - I'll say what I believe, the rest is up for debate. who's culpable for the behavior? and who is responsible to damage from it.

I'd take a lawsuit straight to discovery and the WX channel for promoting and supporting it. They make terrible assumptions about getting out information to people in this 24/7 Live format. Their programming itself dictates that viewership / ratings drive everything. For me this is part and parcel a central issue, and it takes strong people willing to give up big bucks to say, nope I am not going to be a part of that, but even if someone did, they would just grab somebody that would be happy to say yes to it.

ratings drive behaviors - people seek limelight: Want ratings to go up?? ask for more raw and wild scenery!. The people take it in like gospel, a drug, or this idea that, well this is what the "professionals" do, so I need to be THAT way, so I can get channel likes, monetary gains etc. So how does that fit into the society as a whole when, cops don't stop bad driving actions cause its associated with "press", or getting information out the people to help save lives is more important than individual responsibility in times of danger.

So somewhere through it all, it manifested to, the closer I get, the faster I get there, the more exciting it is, AND I might make some cash and get likes, which literally has turned many younger thrill seekers -- I'm not even sure it's fair to call many of them "chasers" at all, into wreckless, high strung, aggressive A-holes, with little regard to anything except : I am the king of this road, get out of the way or else. I have seen a LOT of that behavior increasing rapidly since 2019.

the problem with my statement is that in part, we need good reliable information, that's timely and accurate with chasers on the ground; also, since you can't legislate stupidity entirely away in a free society, and there are laws that cover all of this, so , its up to police to deal with it, but in tornadic situation, are they stopping people running stop signs, most likely no. so, leave it up to the individuals, and we are probably going to end up right back here in this thread talking about it.

I suspect like many popular things, it might die off on its own somewhat in terms of popularity, but since the Wx channel and other outlets propel climate change so hard to "change your behavior", I suspect Tornado chase popularity won't slow down anytime soon, accidents will probably go up as will the Road Rage.

My personal and partial solution to the problem is education and a altering of "why are you doing this" . Educate chasers to stop trying to catch every single storm if its going to make you unsafe to getting there. You know how many times I was 60miles from a storm and WANTED to Race down to catch it? , teach chasers to prepare more in advance, to slow down the get-there-itis!, there is always tomorrow or the next time. Be willing to give it up!, you can't be everywhere all at once.

How do you fix the "why are you here" - youTube, TV/Cable Channels should take away ALL monetary gain from videos. sure, its harsh, but if your goal is to ACTUALLY help people, no one gets paid for doing a community service. I bet you would lose 50-70% of this crap overnight.

 

[Warren Faidley]

One thing that would help immensely is for chasers who make complaints about chasing behavior to copy /post the actual infringements. Not links, as they can be sanitized, as some chasers have done. This was recently done on social media after a chaser nearly caused a very serious accident. Posting bad behavior has the effect of a: exposing the offending person(s), b: alerting those who support / sponsor bad behavior.

 

[Stan Rose]

There are parallels in other fields that suggest ways to improve chaser behavior. For example, I am a full time landscape photographer and an analagous debate within that community has been how many photographers, inspired by their favorite social media photos/photographers, have trampled sensitive wilderness areas, defaced or destroyed sites, invited others to join in the desecration, etc. (similarly with wildlife photographers who harass or bait wildlife) In response, a friend of mine created the "Nature First" movement, which attempts to educate photographers and get them on board with the idea of putting the protection of natural areas ahead of making a buck or getting social media attention. You have to commit to these ideals to belong to the group. Of course, there is no real way to police things or punish bad behavior, but at least you are educating, and more importantly, trying to instill a sense of group pride in the principles behind the movement. I think a similar thing could be done with storm chaseing if someone was committed to form it, a code of ethics and safe, respectful behavior.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Reed is aware of this thread. He noted on social media yesterday that I was "posting flase information" or something like that. If the many accusations (beyond me) and archived video clips over the years are "false information", he can always join ST, man-up and defend himself, but he won't.

He relies on his massive fan base to protect him.

 

[Jason N]

There is a recent episode where Reed is chasing a cell, and there was a vehicle being way MORE wreckless while trying to intercept, and almost wrecked into his car, and though some serious luck, this dummy pulled an avoidance maneuver off his right side and into the grass, and by a LOT of luck, got back on the road, (that other driver was a complete and utter moron with the -- I have a Subaru, I chase for money, so I must now by extension, be Ken Block!). You could hear it in Reeds voice being stunned by it. So, I doubt he is unaware that this is happening, He's fully aware of it, but maybe he assumes, hey that's your life and choices. However, if he gets wrecked into one day and someone dies or gets mangled to the point where, this is life changing for him, his finances, or someone else's, it's a too late reality check. When you carry a heavier load of internet popularity, you are unwittingly sometimes carrying the torch of "how I act, influences others to some degree". I guess all you can hope for is that he starts to call out the bad behaviors himself. He knows it and see's it, and it's not some kind of game, people can and will die because of it if they can't simmer down the crappy behaviors and that's not being dramatic, it's just factual. I'm not hating on him, I just think he can do better at calling it out and maybe dedicate an episode with video cutouts surrounding idiot behaviors that need to change.

 

[Jamie H]

Reed made his views clear in an interview for the Storm Chasing Anthology*, where he said he feels he is in control at all times, that no one should copy him, and it's not up to other people to worry about him. I understand that argument and to be honest there isn't going to be any amount of unhappy internet posts about him that'll change how he does things. You can hope that individuals will step up as leaders, but he's doing his own business and will act as he sees fit. Some people will gravitate towards his style, others towards Skip's (as an example).

*Quite a good watch if you haven't seen it: