4 ms·

I think the main obstacle for drone delivery is that even failure rates as low as 1 per a thousand hours would result in lots of injuries and damaged property.

I think the main obstacle for drone delivery is that even failure rates as low as 1 per a thousand hours would result in lots of injuries and damaged property. Helicopters and planes are maintained to a ridiculous degree. Without getting that kind of safety into drones, they will fall down on people's heads left and right. Especially once the drone traffic gets dense enough that they can run into each other. "Drones" may be used for drug smuggling, though.

rwallace 11y ago
Well, as far as safety goes, consider the following possible delivery vehicles for small packages: 1. A couple of kilograms of drone, that typically won't kill you if it runs into you. 2. A couple of thousand kilograms of vehicle, heavy enough and moving fast enough to kill or cause horrific injuries in even a glancing collision, moving around not up in the air where there is open space but at street level where people are trying to walk around, the vehicle itself being completely brainless and relying entirely at every moment on the control of a fallible, easily distracted human operator, and to cap it all, most likely running on burning fossil fuel. I put it to you that the first option has far better safety properties than the second. If you're going to propose they both be banned, okay, at least that's logically consistent. The one thing you can't do with any sort of consistency or moral authority is criticize the first option while giving the second a free pass.
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  Hyperbole much? There is a very obvious difference between trucks and aircraft: the third dimension. Trucks operate on streets and roads, which are clearly identified and known to pedestrians as a hazardous location where extra attention to the rules and conditions is required. While streets and roads could be made safer for pedestrians (and, often, should!), there are literally billions of pedestrian-vehicle interactions every day that are perfectly safe. This is possible because a street is largely a 2- or even 1-dimensional environment with clear, well-known rules for sharing safely and (generally) good visibility so that every participant can get a full mental picture of that environment. Aircraft operate everywhere, and at an altitude well above where most people would think to look. The danger from aircraft is not that a 10kg craft rams you horizontally at 5 m/s while it flies 1 meter above the same sidewalk you're using (though even that would probably cause significant injuries). It's that a 10kg aircraft you never saw, thought to avoid, or even had an opportunity to avoid falls 100 meters onto your head. That, by the way, is going to "kill or cause horrific injuries" every single time. It's fine to hate automobiles. They're not perfect. They do have collisions, and sometimes those collisions kill humans. That's unfortunate, and worth improving. Most of them also burn fossil fuels, which needs to stop (in most of the world, drones will either burn fossil fuels or have batteries charged by electricity generated by a coal-fired power plant, so they're not better). But your "consistent solution" is absurd: a near-total elimination of economic activity in exchange for a very modest reduction in the human death rate. Which reduction would be immediately reversed and then some by the inability of hospitals to procure medical supplies, among many, many other problems. You should probably think about learning to accept a need for nuance. It really helps in thinking about solving problems, which is what engineering is all about. Insisting that everyone must either agree to ban all automobiles or accept the uncontrollable and unavoidable risk of having others' property fall on their head anywhere at any time is not a constructive position and will not help you solve problems. A more useful approach might be to ask yourself what would be required to make UAV flights safer. Are there environments or applications for which these problems could be minimized? What regulations or restrictions would help? Or maybe you'd like to tackle pedestrian safety in urban areas, a much better-studied set of problems. Or maybe you'd like to do some research, gathering some data on UAV failure rates and modes so that you could inform regulators as to which risks matter most. That is, if you want to do something useful. That wasn't clear from your post.
  - rwallace 11y ago
    Well yes, that's my point. I was responding to a post that was basically suggesting 'drones could in some circumstances be dangerous' implies 'we shouldn't use drones at all' and objecting to the double standard - we don't make that sort of argument for automobiles, and we shouldn't for drones either. 'Drones could in some circumstances be dangerous' implying 'we should look at how to make them safer' - yes, I'm all in favour of that.
- bayesianhorse 11y ago
  A couple of kilograms per drone can easily kill you if it drops from a couple hundred meters. A vehicle operated by human beings can deliver a lot more packages a lot faster, while their accident rates aren't nearly as sky-high.
ianlevesque 11y ago
> "Drones" may be used for drug smuggling, though. You mean already are: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/22/world/drug-drone-crashes-us-mexico-border/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/22/world/drug-drone-crashes-us-me...

rwallace 11y ago

Well, as far as safety goes, consider the following possible delivery vehicles for small packages: 1. A couple of kilograms of drone, that typically won't kill you if it runs into you. 2. A couple of thousand kilograms of vehicle, heavy enough and moving fast enough to kill or cause horrific injuries in even a glancing collision, moving around not up in the air where there is open space but at street level where people are trying to walk around, the vehicle itself being completely brainless and relying entirely at every moment on the control of a fallible, easily distracted human operator, and to cap it all, most likely running on burning fossil fuel. I put it to you that the first option has far better safety properties than the second. If you're going to propose they both be banned, okay, at least that's logically consistent. The one thing you can't do with any sort of consistency or moral authority is criticize the first option while giving the second a free pass.

fredkbloggs 11y ago
Hyperbole much? There is a very obvious difference between trucks and aircraft: the third dimension. Trucks operate on streets and roads, which are clearly identified and known to pedestrians as a hazardous location where extra attention to the rules and conditions is required. While streets and roads could be made safer for pedestrians (and, often, should!), there are literally billions of pedestrian-vehicle interactions every day that are perfectly safe. This is possible because a street is largely a 2- or even 1-dimensional environment with clear, well-known rules for sharing safely and (generally) good visibility so that every participant can get a full mental picture of that environment. Aircraft operate everywhere, and at an altitude well above where most people would think to look. The danger from aircraft is not that a 10kg craft rams you horizontally at 5 m/s while it flies 1 meter above the same sidewalk you're using (though even that would probably cause significant injuries). It's that a 10kg aircraft you never saw, thought to avoid, or even had an opportunity to avoid falls 100 meters onto your head. That, by the way, is going to "kill or cause horrific injuries" every single time. It's fine to hate automobiles. They're not perfect. They do have collisions, and sometimes those collisions kill humans. That's unfortunate, and worth improving. Most of them also burn fossil fuels, which needs to stop (in most of the world, drones will either burn fossil fuels or have batteries charged by electricity generated by a coal-fired power plant, so they're not better). But your "consistent solution" is absurd: a near-total elimination of economic activity in exchange for a very modest reduction in the human death rate. Which reduction would be immediately reversed and then some by the inability of hospitals to procure medical supplies, among many, many other problems. You should probably think about learning to accept a need for nuance. It really helps in thinking about solving problems, which is what engineering is all about. Insisting that everyone must either agree to ban all automobiles or accept the uncontrollable and unavoidable risk of having others' property fall on their head anywhere at any time is not a constructive position and will not help you solve problems. A more useful approach might be to ask yourself what would be required to make UAV flights safer. Are there environments or applications for which these problems could be minimized? What regulations or restrictions would help? Or maybe you'd like to tackle pedestrian safety in urban areas, a much better-studied set of problems. Or maybe you'd like to do some research, gathering some data on UAV failure rates and modes so that you could inform regulators as to which risks matter most. That is, if you want to do something useful. That wasn't clear from your post.
- rwallace 11y ago
  Well yes, that's my point. I was responding to a post that was basically suggesting 'drones could in some circumstances be dangerous' implies 'we shouldn't use drones at all' and objecting to the double standard - we don't make that sort of argument for automobiles, and we shouldn't for drones either. 'Drones could in some circumstances be dangerous' implying 'we should look at how to make them safer' - yes, I'm all in favour of that.
bayesianhorse 11y ago
A couple of kilograms per drone can easily kill you if it drops from a couple hundred meters. A vehicle operated by human beings can deliver a lot more packages a lot faster, while their accident rates aren't nearly as sky-high.

ianlevesque 11y ago

> "Drones" may be used for drug smuggling, though. You mean already are: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/22/world/drug-drone-crashes-us-mexico-border/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/22/world/drug-drone-crashes-us-me...