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Modern unmanned aerial vehicles like the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 and the General Atomics MQ-1 cost in the millions. Cessna and helicopters do not. Granted there

Modern unmanned aerial vehicles like the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 and the General Atomics MQ-1 cost in the millions. Cessna and helicopters do not. Granted there are cheaper UAV out there, and generally its unlikely they could carry a payload sufficient for the level of surveillance necessary for traffic enforcement. BTW - my intention isn't to advocate for drones, just to question the rationale of making a distinction between manned and unmanned surveillance, when in fact it might make more sense worrying about being aerial surveillance more generally.

confluence 13y ago
You could jury rig as Cessna in an afternoon. The high costs of defense UAVs are almost wholly due to defense contracting rent seeking and a severe lack of competition. Drones do not cost what you think they cost. People are expensive. Robots aren't.
speedyrev 13y ago
Local law enforcement doesn't need million dollar drones or a sizable payload. There are already many small cheap drones available for local use. All that is really needed is a functioning camera.
- freejack 13y ago
  My point is that they don't need drones for aerial enforcement. Its been going on for years and in some ways, the "do it with a drone" element is a bit of a red herring. The very real question that needs to be considered is whether or not law enforcement should be doing aerial enforcement at all. How they do it is less interesting to me than the question of whether or not they should.
jlgreco 13y ago
"Granted there are cheaper UAV out there" In other news, there are smaller ships than the Queen Mary 2... "Generally its unlikely they could carry a payload sufficient for the level of surveillance necessary for traffic enforcement." Having been nailed with a speeding ticket from a Cessna: All they need is a camera with someone watching it that can say "blue car, coming from half a mile away". You don't even need radar or any sort of speed tracking, you just time the car between to landmarks (the same way that local police do it in states that only allow state police to use radar guns). The type of drones your local hackerspace whips up for fun on a weekend are damn near sufficient.
deleted 13y ago
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confluence 13y ago

You could jury rig as Cessna in an afternoon. The high costs of defense UAVs are almost wholly due to defense contracting rent seeking and a severe lack of competition. Drones do not cost what you think they cost. People are expensive. Robots aren't.

speedyrev 13y ago

Local law enforcement doesn't need million dollar drones or a sizable payload. There are already many small cheap drones available for local use. All that is really needed is a functioning camera.

freejack 13y ago
My point is that they don't need drones for aerial enforcement. Its been going on for years and in some ways, the "do it with a drone" element is a bit of a red herring. The very real question that needs to be considered is whether or not law enforcement should be doing aerial enforcement at all. How they do it is less interesting to me than the question of whether or not they should.

jlgreco 13y ago

"Granted there are cheaper UAV out there" In other news, there are smaller ships than the Queen Mary 2... "Generally its unlikely they could carry a payload sufficient for the level of surveillance necessary for traffic enforcement." Having been nailed with a speeding ticket from a Cessna: All they need is a camera with someone watching it that can say "blue car, coming from half a mile away". You don't even need radar or any sort of speed tracking, you just time the car between to landmarks (the same way that local police do it in states that only allow state police to use radar guns). The type of drones your local hackerspace whips up for fun on a weekend are damn near sufficient.

deleted 13y ago

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