Never say never. In most cases is is fairly obvious if a person is chasing storms. I had a member of the law enforcement community in Cherokee county Iowa tell me "chasing will be regulated in the future". Maybe that was just his opinion, or maybe he knows something.
He'd have beef with LEO's down in Mills County. I got yanked over there for letting my tags go two weeks over while I was solo chasing there last year, and when I told him what I was doing after he asked what I was up to "all the way out here," he wanted immediately to know where the storms were, and whether he needed to make a ten mile quick trip home to move his Mustang under cover. He approached me initially pretty bored and routine, and I was sure I was going to get ticketed, but he became interested really quickly and related some "storm stories" of the type that people usually get when they're pegged as chasers. After I told him he should get his car under cover (the oncoming storms were hailers), he let me off with a verbal warning and told me to be careful. Craig and I had a pretty similar encounter during a chase in Kansas this year, when a Kansas trooper pulled behind us while we were well on the side strip of a lonely country road spotting and checking data.
Again, regulation would seem not only foolish, but
murderously irresponsible. Regulation on chasing would strongly discourage spotters, meaning: less eyes, less reports, more deaths. Lawmakers would have hands wet with blood, and when the media catches wind of this little after-effect and delivers it to anger the public, you can bet some of them won't ever be returning to their seats in their state congress. Besides, all that chasers would do (unless they're the type who will dutifully follow any law issued, even unjust, immoral laws like this would be) is just strip their cars of the bells and whistles, and then if they get pulled over, intent is pretty much impossible to establish. "We were on our way to OKC deciding to take some backroads to get off the Interstate and whoops! Ran into a bad storm."
I remember a thread here some time back about "chasers" beginning to get confused with the "ambulance chasers," i.e. people who follow strong storms and then show up right at the scene of tragedy to pull a scheme. Are you sure he didn't mean that?
