funny thing is.. there are ways around "being out of cell coverage" and that is something like "Spot". Basically a cheap satellite uplink and tracking device. While it may not be good for texting or calls, if you get into trouble, you can relay that info and anybody who knows your spot's address, can track you.
In reply to mad_machine :
Yup... or a sat phone.. pretty simple and cheap. But I didn't bring that up because people aren't actually interested in solutions. They just want to be outraged by something.
Fueled by Caffeine said:In reply to mad_machine :
Yup... or a sat phone.. pretty simple and cheap. But I didn't bring that up because people aren't actually interested in solutions. They just want to be outraged by something.
It seems to me that you are outraged by people expressing outrage.
In reply to nutherjrfan :
I was listening to an interview with him on the radio a while back. That guy's seen some creepy stuff.
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
I’m offended you’re not offended.
volvoclearinghouse said:The point is not that the students could do this outside of the realm of the college. The point is that this club's been around for almost a century, and now, because of some ill-founded concerns, they can't do what they've always done. Nothing about the activity is illegal, insensitive, offensive, or whatever other buzzword you care to throw around. Some committee, somewhere, simply decided it was "Too Risky".
I don't buy the "This Day and Age" crap, either. That's simply code-speak for, in this instance, "we're afraid of being sued". And that's bullE36 M3. Plain and simple bullE36 M3. Students can't take responsibility for themselves, parent won't let them take responsibility for themselves, the college is too E36 M3 scared to let them keep doing it, and a nice thing goes away.
What nice thing is going to go away next, because we live in "This Day and Age"?
I have been avoiding posting in this thread because I'm not sure I'm going to say anything useful, so I guess this is just venting. A lot of you guys are speculating about this stuff from the outside (which is fine) but I grew up in it.
I went to college from 2008-2012 and was heavily involved in the Formula SAE program. At the beginning of those 4 years we had our own private unsupervised space in a university building, university backing, open unsupervised machine shop access, and relatively easy access to a test site to drive the car. By the end, we had a shared, supervised space with limited working hours, cash sponsorships had to be hidden to avoid having our budget "skimmed" by the school, machine shop hours were limited and had to be supervised, and testing required waivers and faculty sign offs. I fought this stuff as it was happening, to little (or possibly negative) effect, and admit that I may not have played the political game I needed to, but the fact that I had to was ridiculous- even being told at one point that I was just an idiot who would be gone in a few years, so I should bow down to the faculty since they're in it for the long haul (my tuition pays your salary motherberkeleyer!)
Through all of this there was only one student injury, in another club, due to a blatantly unsafe design which was signed off on by a faculty member- the students present during the accident (myself and a number of FSAE people included) responded appropriately, and yet we're the ones who got clamped down on in the name of safety. The faculty member responsible was given more authority over things and was never even mentioned in conjunction with the accident, much less reprimanded.
A university is a business, and wants to make as much money as possible while avoiding as much liability as possible- if a club activity doesn't generate more revenue than it consumes, it's going to get cut down to the bare minimum of what is possible to still claim that they have that program.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
Well put. Thank you for your insights. I, too, was involved in stuff similar to this in college (around a decade earlier than you, though) and the worry that the 'Tute would pull funding or otherwise quash us was real. I don't even remember who all we had backing us from the faculty- it was all just students and grad students as far as I recall. Maybe they just forgot about us. 
As someone else pointed out, many many more people are injured every year doing other university-backed activities (such as organized sports) and yet they evidentally "pass" the "risk assessment", likely in no small part because those activities generate money and alumni involvement. Scuba diving, hiking, and spelunking primarily benefit just the students who are involved in them.
I realize that I'm cresting 40 years on this planet now, and there is a tendency to look back on the past with rose-colored glasses and complain about current events and "kids these days." But there is also a memory of what life was life when I was growing up, and comparing that to what my kids are now growing up through. It's different, and we try to be objective and not say it's better or worse...but it's hard to ignore the problems- problems we never seemed to have.
Perhaps the main take away is that life is more complex, in most ways, than it ever was, and will only get more complex.
From where I sit right now, it looks a lot like things are only going to get more restrictive as life goes on- I don't know if this is how every generation feels as they grow up and look at the world around them, or if it's an accurate assessment of where we're headed, but I don't feel like the traditional wisdom of "work hard, save money, do the exciting stuff when you can comfortably afford it" holds up any more. I might not be allowed to go rallying later, it might get lawyered out of existence or become even more prohibitively expensive. Same for other forms of racing, or riding motorcycles, or even truly owning my own vehicles (right to repair, subscription model, etc.) There's a strong feeling of needing to do this stuff before it's taken away, because as far as I can remember things have always gotten more restrictive, expensive, and gained more hoops to jump through over time, until there's eventually no real choice. This, I think, is me looking at the downside of the increased complexity you're referring to.
Events like Pikes Peak, Isle of Man TT, Dakar, etc. would have a very difficult time starting from scratch today, and it's only their legacy keeping them viable for now. How long until they're gone too? How long until we all have to do this stuff illegally if we want to do it at all?
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :
Yup. And having already paid out over $100M in settlements over the last few years, who could blame them?
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
"Events like Pikes Peak, Isle of Man TT, Dakar, etc. would have a very difficult time starting from scratch today, and it's only their legacy keeping them viable for now. How long until they're gone too? How long until we all have to do this stuff illegally if we want to do it at all?"
A very good point, perhaps worthy of it's own topic? I will say, when I was your age, I used to think the same thing. That was around a dozen years ago. Since that time, low-buck endurance racing became a thing, which was a surprise and has been a lot of fun. But, the lawyers are starting to get to that now- the required equipment is a LOT more expensive than it used to be. And that's been with all the push-back the event organizers can muster. It's only going to get more restrictive and more expensive.
I'm still a bit irritated that they paved the Peak. Doesn't really hold the same allure anymore.
There is no way in hell you could ever pull off the Isle of Man TT today.
In reply to Appleseed :
In fairness, if the motorcycle were invented today, in all likelihood it wouldn't ever be allowed on public roads.
The0retical said:Backpacking is pretty much the least dangerous activity I've partaken in over the course of my life.
I don't see what the big deal is for the school event as long as the students sign the proper liability waivers if need be.
Regarding backpacking in general, as a kid I would walk around the woods (national forest) all day exploring. Now as an adult, and having come into contact with multiple angry bears and other animals since then, now I wouldn't walk in that same area without an operational phone and/or a gun. Or at least not without other people I know I could outrun.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
I was doing Formula Hybrid over that same time period and we had very similar issues, which were compounded by the fact that we were a fledgling club trying to prove we were actually serious and worth the school's support, and fighting for ANY resources we could get. When the school finally gave us a shop space, we were told we couldn't do any actual work in it because too dangerous (There was some ridiculous back story here about a completely unaffiliated group who had previously used the space involving aerosol cans, explosions, and a wind tunnel in the basement beneath our shop, which happened to be in a building immediately adjacent to the university president's office.) We were able to eventually get another space for doing actual work, but that then became increasingly encumbered with various silly rules from the school over the next few years. This included several periods where we were locked out of our shop altogether due to other completely unaffiliated groups doing stupid E36 M3 elsewhere on campus.
DejaVue said:I don't see what the big deal is for the school event as long as the students sign the proper liability waivers if need be.
They already have that available, just not through the particular club in question. It is organized through the school, led by a guide, and costs a little more per outing...Oh the horrors!
I rowed (still row) in HS and College. I remember when our Coxswain got distracted and ran one of the newer 8s right into the marshes, breaking the boat in half and sinking it while it was 40 degrees out.
I was never so happy to be rowing a 4 that day! We all got into some degree of trouble because as a team, we either all suffered or we all prospered together. The team was not disbanded, the boat was replaced, and the coxswain was booted from the team for being the idiot he was.
Driven5 said:DejaVue said:I don't see what the big deal is for the school event as long as the students sign the proper liability waivers if need be.
They already have that available, just not through the particular club in question. It is organized through the school, led by a guide, and costs a little more per outing...Oh the horrors!
3 to 5 times as much is not "a little more"
RevRico said:Driven5 said:DejaVue said:I don't see what the big deal is for the school event as long as the students sign the proper liability waivers if need be.
They already have that available, just not through the particular club in question. It is organized through the school, led by a guide, and costs a little more per outing...Oh the horrors!
3 to 5 times as much is not "a little more"
Yes, when talking smaller numbers, the percentages make it seem more impressive...For instance, they were already willing to pay probably 10-100 times more for doing an activity with the outing club than literally just doing the exact same outing without any club affiliation.
Within the scope of the cost of educational and living expenses for a college student...Yes an extra $50-$100 a few times per year is pretty insignificant. Might as well retitle this thread "upper middle class first world problems".
Driven5 said:RevRico said:Driven5 said:DejaVue said:I don't see what the big deal is for the school event as long as the students sign the proper liability waivers if need be.
They already have that available, just not through the particular club in question. It is organized through the school, led by a guide, and costs a little more per outing...Oh the horrors!
3 to 5 times as much is not "a little more"
Within the scope of the cost of educational and living expenses for a college student...Yes an extra $50-$100 a few times per year is pretty insignificant. Might as well retitle this thread "upper middle class first world problems".
I guess that's one way to look at it. The flip side of that argument is that after paying 5 figure sums of money for tuition, thousands more in room and board, hundreds fr text books each semester...that extra $50-100 becomes very significant. I know that was a relatively massive amount of money to me in my college days.
In reply to Furious_E :
While it may 'feel' like a lot to the typical college student, I would wager that most have never looked closely enough at their other discretionary spending habits to know whether it actually is. For the majority I would argue, it's probably not. For some, it certainly is...But even if just going by how much money 'feels' like to them, there is also already another option that will be even more gentile on their account balance...It just requires it to be important enough to them to take responsibility for it themselves.
Don't get me wrong. It sounds like a neat enough club, and it's a shame to see liability concerns taking such precedence. I don't agree with the decision, nor is it my decision to make...Just as it isn't the students' decision to make either. Their decision lies in how they will choose to adapt (or not) to such uncontrollable changes in their life. They still have plenty of options to choose from. So I simply don't think it is (or should be) nearly the catastrophic event, both in these kids' lives and as an omen for the future, that it seems to be getting portrayed as.
In reply to DejaVue :
What if the only person you were faster than was the hot chick you were trying to impress? 
In reply to Driven5 :
berkeley college students, that's still a lot of money for me.
Think about going to a autocross or rally cross and finding out the price tripled, while nothing else changed. If the SCCA did that, I'd be completely out of motorsports. Finding an extra $50-60 for an event is easy, finding a extra $150-180 for each event? Im not the only one that would stop, and it would probably scare a lot of new people away just from the entry cost.
In reply to RevRico :
Everywhere I have lived has also had one or more non-SCCA clubs locally that also put on smaller and less expensive autox'es. Even if your autox region didn't already have at least one, entry fees going up like that would make it relatively easy to get enough support from the other local autox'ers to start one.
Not to mention we're talking about the equivalent of government owned parking lots (complete with cones) that are free for the public to use for their motorsports needs...Where you can either pay SCCA prices, noticeably lower local club pries, or just use Facebook to get a bunch of like minded local car enthusiasts to meet you there for no additional cost.
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