Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.158] on Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 12:41:06 :
In Reply to: Re: Drone overhead! posted by mannyc [96.224.210.179] on Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 11:52:00 :
The practical problem is that the new drone rules are promulgated by the FAA, which doesn't have any practical way to enforce them. They're used to enforcing regulations against licensed pilots and airlines that are easy to track down and are basically trying to stay on the right side of the law. But there is no way the FAA can go around policing local events where people might fly drones. Local police are not going to arrest drone operators and then try to get them charged in federal court. Some towns are starting to ban drones so local police could put a stop to things like this. All National Parks recently banned them entirely, after they had to fish some guy's drone out of a geyser at Yellowstone.
The drone rules allow drones to be flown only over people affiliated with the operator (I forget the legalese, but the gist of it is to allow them for movie production). The current drone regs are understood to be preliminary. There's talk about new regs requiring drones to have built-in "no-fly zones", although that assumes they include GPS, and it would probably be easy for a determined person to bypass.
This doofus obviously wasn't interested in any FAA regulations, but he's just as responsible for the damage he caused as if he'd thrown a rock up in the air and it came down on someone's head.
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