3 ms·

You can replace "drone" with "car" and I don't see the "gap being plugged". Of course for the latter we even have demonstrable harm, not only aggressive overreg

You can replace "drone" with "car" and I don't see the "gap being plugged". Of course for the latter we even have demonstrable harm, not only aggressive overregulation.

noirbot 6y ago
You also have a lot more obvious benefits to having cars be commonly available. Pretty much no one I know with a drone is using it for anything more than a novelty. It's not to say there aren't valid uses for a drone, but there seems to be less urgency to make sure everyone can have a drone when the downside seems right there.
- ggreer 6y ago
  Drones are used only for hobby/novelty purposes because the FAA effectively bans everything else. Amazon, UPS, FedEx, and others would love to do drone delivery, but they can’t get regulatory approval. Instead, they have to send trucks through neighborhoods at high speeds. These vehicles inevitably injure and kill some pedestrians. They also create significant amounts of pollution. Drones are held to a higher standard than any other vehicle I'm aware of. This ends up causing more harm than it prevents.
bluntfang 6y ago
if you think cars are aggressively over regulated, wait til you find out how many people with multiple DUIs still drive!
- stefan_ 6y ago
  It's unfortunate sentence construction on my part. I think it's the opposite; somehow toy drones are regulated to have geofenced no-fly-zones but cars can accelerate to 100mph and beyond in cities.
  - hansvm 6y ago
    Not your point, but 100mph can be problematic. As far as MN is concerned for example, 99 in a 15 yields a small fine that you can attempt to fight, and 100 in a 95 anywhere (not just in the state's borders) yields an automatic license revocation without possibility of trial.
jrockway 6y ago
Cars are different than drones because we built our country around cars, and can't go back now. Drones are neat, and a good photography tool, but not quite as useful as being able to move around the world at 60 miles per hour. That's why we tolerate cars -- the upsides outweigh the downsides.
- stefan_ 6y ago
  This is such an disingenuous argument. Automated speed enforcement is impossible "because we built our country around cars"? Increases in power, weight and size that far outstrip any justifiable utility? Shapes that are demonstrably harmful to pedestrian survival but we continue to build them?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - buran77 6y ago
    Comparing drones and cars is also very disingenuous given that cars and driving are heavily regulated and relatively well understood by people since they are an integral part of day to day life almost all over the world, while drones are still mostly seen as harmless toys and the vast majority of people operate and treat them as such. How many people take a car for a spin on a working airport runway because all that asphalt means it's a good place to have fun with the toy, especially without a driver's license or any idea of the rules of driving? Because plenty of people do it with drones. A better comparison would have been with laser pointers, another thing many people think is just a harmless toy. > Of course for the latter [cars] we even have demonstrable harm, not only aggressive overregulation This goes way beyond disingenuous. Do we have to wait for the harm to happen before considering regulation? There's a lot of truth in the popular wisdom that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" so I'm curious what's a solid argument to suddenly demand being reactive rather than proactive especially when it comes to lives. I mean other than the one making my point above, that people want to play with "the toy".
- swiley 6y ago
  >and can't go back now. We're going to have to: Less populated areas can't afford to maintain the infrastructure and more populated areas exceed roads in plains carrying individuals in cars ability to scale.

You can replace "drone" with "car" and I don't see the "gap being plugged". Of course for the latter we even have demonstrable harm, not only aggressive overregulation.

noirbot 6y ago

You also have a lot more obvious benefits to having cars be commonly available. Pretty much no one I know with a drone is using it for anything more than a novelty. It's not to say there aren't valid uses for a drone, but there seems to be less urgency to make sure everyone can have a drone when the downside seems right there.

ggreer 6y ago
Drones are used only for hobby/novelty purposes because the FAA effectively bans everything else. Amazon, UPS, FedEx, and others would love to do drone delivery, but they can’t get regulatory approval. Instead, they have to send trucks through neighborhoods at high speeds. These vehicles inevitably injure and kill some pedestrians. They also create significant amounts of pollution. Drones are held to a higher standard than any other vehicle I'm aware of. This ends up causing more harm than it prevents.

bluntfang 6y ago

if you think cars are aggressively over regulated, wait til you find out how many people with multiple DUIs still drive!

stefan_ 6y ago
It's unfortunate sentence construction on my part. I think it's the opposite; somehow toy drones are regulated to have geofenced no-fly-zones but cars can accelerate to 100mph and beyond in cities.
- hansvm 6y ago
  Not your point, but 100mph can be problematic. As far as MN is concerned for example, 99 in a 15 yields a small fine that you can attempt to fight, and 100 in a 95 anywhere (not just in the state's borders) yields an automatic license revocation without possibility of trial.

jrockway 6y ago

Cars are different than drones because we built our country around cars, and can't go back now. Drones are neat, and a good photography tool, but not quite as useful as being able to move around the world at 60 miles per hour. That's why we tolerate cars -- the upsides outweigh the downsides.

stefan_ 6y ago
This is such an disingenuous argument. Automated speed enforcement is impossible "because we built our country around cars"? Increases in power, weight and size that far outstrip any justifiable utility? Shapes that are demonstrably harmful to pedestrian survival but we continue to build them?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- buran77 6y ago
  Comparing drones and cars is also very disingenuous given that cars and driving are heavily regulated and relatively well understood by people since they are an integral part of day to day life almost all over the world, while drones are still mostly seen as harmless toys and the vast majority of people operate and treat them as such. How many people take a car for a spin on a working airport runway because all that asphalt means it's a good place to have fun with the toy, especially without a driver's license or any idea of the rules of driving? Because plenty of people do it with drones. A better comparison would have been with laser pointers, another thing many people think is just a harmless toy. > Of course for the latter [cars] we even have demonstrable harm, not only aggressive overregulation This goes way beyond disingenuous. Do we have to wait for the harm to happen before considering regulation? There's a lot of truth in the popular wisdom that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" so I'm curious what's a solid argument to suddenly demand being reactive rather than proactive especially when it comes to lives. I mean other than the one making my point above, that people want to play with "the toy".
swiley 6y ago
>and can't go back now. We're going to have to: Less populated areas can't afford to maintain the infrastructure and more populated areas exceed roads in plains carrying individuals in cars ability to scale.