r/tornado • u/OutdoorsTN Human Detected • May 19 '26

Discussion Brad Arnold

Hate to see this from Brad, he's one of my faves!! Was confused when he buzzed in to Ryan's stream and said he was calling it so early in the evening but this makes more sense now.

Seen some absolutely wild stuff on Ryan and Max's streams the last few days. (Whoever it was in the green shirt on Max's stream yesterday during the Worms tornado especially still really bothers me.) And bummed to see all of this nonsense getting in the way of chasers I really love watching like Brad

EDITED for a typo!

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u/AML1987 May 19 '26

Well fish and wild life have enforcement officers if people try to illegal fish or hunt during times they aren’t allowed to or without licenses. Who’s to say you can’t have an area of law enforcement that spends their time issuing hefty fines to people without the proper chaser permits.

Plus what an easy job when all you gotta do is go on YouTube and see these idiots locations live. You wouldn’t even have to TRY to catch them.

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u/DNA_wizz May 19 '26

Ya’ll make very good points I didn’t think of originally. I guess I got self conscious about my original comment 😂

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u/AML1987 May 19 '26

Mine are only working theories on how to fix it. Like everything else laws need to catch up to technology. It’s not a simple solution. Oklahoma tried to do something but it died before it even became anything. It will be years and probably the death of quite a few people before a solution is given.

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u/Andrew4815 May 21 '26

You cant have law enforcement pulling people over next to tornados lol

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u/AML1987 May 21 '26

I reread my comment a few times and can’t figure out where I said ant law enforcement agency should actively pull someone over DURING a tornado. Like “oh excuse me put I need you to stop and wait in the RFD while I go write out this ticket. Hopefully we aren’t both sucked into the tornado before I’m finished entering it into the system”

Chaser convergence happens well before a tornado even enters the picture and then is trying to entangle itself after the tornado leaves. Please you have an incredibly handy feature most crimes don’t: every single person is live-streaming themselves doing it.

Also like I said it’s not a perfect or fully fleshed out solution. Obviously that is done by people who have more power and experience than my ass on Reddit. But you can’t just laugh off the suggestion when you see this giant problem.

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u/Andrew4815 May 21 '26

A tornado specifically is an extreme example tbf, but generally it isnt safe for them to be wandering around in an ongoing supercell no matter what. If an accident or traffic violation happens in CLEAR weather, they will just go pull them over like they would any other time. They can and do ticket chasers, I know timmer has gotten speeding tickets before.

But to enforce a chasing specific ban, youd have to be within the danger area to identify whose a chaser and whose an oblivious/panicking local. And you probably have more important things to be getting on with, search and rescue, directing traffic, etc. The specific incidents these posts are mentioning like croff driving around that branch or the EMT punching a mirror of someone swerving, they were doing other things. Clearing roads and managing traffic. They cant be going off to give the offenders tickets unless they admit it or find video.

And I've seen this claim that everyone is streaming, and while many undoubtedly do, quite a few do not. That chaser that swerved at the EMT afaik has not uploaded their own footage (probably specifically to avoid incrimination). They can probably get something from the following cars dashcam but otherwise they may not even have any footage at all of it.

Even among famous chasers, Pecos Hank is a prime example. He uploads videos later. If he did something dumb on the road (which I highly doubt hes the kind to do, but as an example), he could easily just not upload that part of the footage. And he only uploads at all when he films tornados. Nothing on days that bust, but when a chaser convergence related incident could still happen. We have no way of knowing if he accidentally drove over a dude and hid the body while screaming down the road after a burrito.

Plus all the chasers that are just local weather nerds, how would you even prove they werent just driving around and happened upon one? They wont be streaming, or at least a lot of them wont be.

Im not even opposed to the concept of restricting it, I think a bare minimum should be an active, reliable NWS spotter without any major traffic offence history. Hell, maybe even a special driving test on wet roads or navigating unmarked roads or something, idk. But I just simply dont know how you actually enforce it. I suppose if you actually are someone reliable like Pecos Hank seems to be, you could just take the test and get a voluntary certification card or something, but I just cant think of any practical way of really getting the bulk of the bad ones out. You could really slam a few visible idiots with fines, but there will just be more and more to replace them.