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All legislation tends to be reactive rather than proactive. The drone industry, in my opinion, has been rather irresponsible about educating their customers.

All legislation tends to be reactive rather than proactive. The drone industry, in my opinion, has been rather irresponsible about educating their customers. As a result you have people flying drones in places, at times and altitudes they should not. A few years ago, where I live, we had a rash of new drone owners doing stupid crap like flying over homes, roads, highways, parks and supermarket parking lots, to name a few. This culminated with the inevitable. Someone got hurt, badly, when a drone fell out of the sky. The drone owner/operator got arrested. They ended-up in jail and lost their home in the lawsuit that followed. Pretty f-ing stupid behavior if you ask me. As someone who has been designing, building and flying all kinds of remote controlled aircraft for somewhere around 35 years, I have been looking at what the consumer side of the drone industry has been doing with horror. I have crashed so many aircraft and helicopters I can't even list them. I am not talking about cheap toys either. My highest cost crash was $6,000 in one day. The point is these things are toys made with toy-grade electronics. They are nowhere near reliable enough to dare fly over structures, people or roads unless the pilot is willing to face the consequences of killing one or more people and possibly burning down an entire neighborhood. Having done extensive work in aerospace I know full-well what proper fault-tolerant design looks like --cause I have many fault-tolerant designs under my belt. These things are not even close to being safe enough to fly over a crowd of kids at the park or above a neighborhood. And yet it happens all the time. The industry has had an opportunity to address these issues, either technologically, through education or both. And they have note. Therefore, they are slowly being constrained through precisely the legislation they deserve to have to face. One of the things I said years ago as drones started to become popular and people started to do stupid things with them was that "these people are going to ruin the model aircraft hobby for everyone". I am sad to say I was right. They are doing precisely that and more. Not sure if there are any solutions at this point other than the kind of legislation responsible drone owners do not need and do not want. Oddly enough this is precisely the same situation we have in the US with the firearm issue. Responsible firearm owners don't need legislation to be, well, responsible law-abiding citizens who harm nobody. Those who are in a range between careless and demented are the one's who ruin it for everyone else. This is now happening to drones. Same thing. Different hardware.

akersten 7y ago
100% agree that regulation was the inevitable conclusion of the whole drone craze. But what baffles me is the type of regulation they're proposing. The bad actor was appropriately found and punished in your story. My thought is, instead of more onerous requirements on end users surrounding registration, why not require the drones to meet some minimum technical requirement regarding capability? The problem doesn't seem to be in finding the person responsible, so why focus the legislation there, instead of trying to make the hobby safer overall? Unless they think it's easier just to discourage people from the RC hobby altogether, which is what the current proposal would do.
- robomartin 7y ago
  Well, in the local case someone told the cops who was flying it (from the comfort of their backyard, BTW). In most cases it likely is very difficult to identify the pilot. Worst yet, you might never see the drone while they create great potential danger (flying over a freeway) or invade privacy (fly above someone's property or look into a home). I am not for a minute proposing bans or anything like that. Yet the current framework and industry do not impose any level of responsibility on owners. For example, I carry a one million dollar insurance policy to cover any damage I might cause with my model airplanes, helicopters or drones. However, the policy is only valid if I fly within a set of rules. Not surprisingly, I am not allowed to fly over people, homes or roads. Which means I tend to be extremely safety-conscious and never fly in any way that would endanger others or their property. That is absolutely lacking in the consumer drone industry. People think nothing of flying their drones over anything or anyone and they don't even have insurance to cover the damage they might cause. As a simple example, my solar array cost in the order of $50K. If some idiot crashes a drone into it it'll cost me thousands of dollars to fix it. It might even start a massive fire. And yet, unless you see who's flying the thing, they confess or someone identifies them, they will never be caught. When people do not suffer consequences for their actions they have no reason to behave with civility or consideration. Most people are good, but most people can be real idiots as well.
ceejayoz 7y ago
> They are nowhere near reliable enough to dare fly over structures, people or roads unless the pilot is willing to face the consequences of killing one or more people and possibly burning down an entire neighborhood. If your entire neighborhood can be burned down by one consumer-level drone, you've got bigger issues. Kids hit baseballs near crowds, with similar kinetic potential and the occasional injury and even death. We manage to survive as a society without strict regulations on baseball games.

akersten 7y ago

100% agree that regulation was the inevitable conclusion of the whole drone craze. But what baffles me is the type of regulation they're proposing. The bad actor was appropriately found and punished in your story. My thought is, instead of more onerous requirements on end users surrounding registration, why not require the drones to meet some minimum technical requirement regarding capability? The problem doesn't seem to be in finding the person responsible, so why focus the legislation there, instead of trying to make the hobby safer overall? Unless they think it's easier just to discourage people from the RC hobby altogether, which is what the current proposal would do.

robomartin 7y ago
Well, in the local case someone told the cops who was flying it (from the comfort of their backyard, BTW). In most cases it likely is very difficult to identify the pilot. Worst yet, you might never see the drone while they create great potential danger (flying over a freeway) or invade privacy (fly above someone's property or look into a home). I am not for a minute proposing bans or anything like that. Yet the current framework and industry do not impose any level of responsibility on owners. For example, I carry a one million dollar insurance policy to cover any damage I might cause with my model airplanes, helicopters or drones. However, the policy is only valid if I fly within a set of rules. Not surprisingly, I am not allowed to fly over people, homes or roads. Which means I tend to be extremely safety-conscious and never fly in any way that would endanger others or their property. That is absolutely lacking in the consumer drone industry. People think nothing of flying their drones over anything or anyone and they don't even have insurance to cover the damage they might cause. As a simple example, my solar array cost in the order of $50K. If some idiot crashes a drone into it it'll cost me thousands of dollars to fix it. It might even start a massive fire. And yet, unless you see who's flying the thing, they confess or someone identifies them, they will never be caught. When people do not suffer consequences for their actions they have no reason to behave with civility or consideration. Most people are good, but most people can be real idiots as well.

ceejayoz 7y ago

> They are nowhere near reliable enough to dare fly over structures, people or roads unless the pilot is willing to face the consequences of killing one or more people and possibly burning down an entire neighborhood. If your entire neighborhood can be burned down by one consumer-level drone, you've got bigger issues. Kids hit baseballs near crowds, with similar kinetic potential and the occasional injury and even death. We manage to survive as a society without strict regulations on baseball games.