Colorado Lawmakers Seek to Make Flying Drones Over Wildfires a Felony
thedrive.com
thedrive.com
Is everything going to be a felony these days? Why? It attaches serious long term consequences, because a FELONY is widely regarded as a crime of direct, major harm against a person.
Flying a drone that actually causes a collision, sure, maybe that's a felony. Just getting caught in the area, because the pilot is curious and maybe never even /heard/ of this law? No, that's not a felony, in my opinion.
Considering that drones have prevented planes from flying over with fire suppressant, this very much does meet the standard of causing harm.
This would ensure that all drone operators have basic knowledge of what is expected of them (such as “don’t fly a drone over a wildfire”), and make it straightforward to fine/prosecute operators who are flying without a license.
If the majority of operators are responsible, educated, and respect the rules, it could even help relax some of the rules around drone operation in the long run.
"a misdemeanor is a lesser offense, punishable by imprisonment for up to a year."
Is a year in prison a "joke"?
A legal theory that says "I trust the authorities to ignore the law when I think they should" is a terrible theory.
It’s already a felony to impede emergency rescue efforts. And rightfully so: it places lives directly at risk. It’s intuitively illegal, and intuitively grave. “Curiousity” wouldn’t be an excuse for getting in the way of normal firefighters with an RC car, would it?
Why is impeding emergency services any less serious because it happened via drone?
I’d argue it’s more serious as there’s less skin in the game for the perpetrator.
It's not like someone parking in front of a fire hydrant. In that case the fire fighters may just break your windows and run the hose through your car.
When someone flies a drone over a wildfire, they often don't even think they're doing anything wrong, and firefighting aircraft have to be all suspended until they can find the pilot and get them to stop flying, or otherwise prevent it from being in the area anymore. It's a threat that's a lot more difficult to mitigate.
I smell knee jerk legislating. Just amend the existing law if new power is needed to prosecute the existing law. Don’t make a new law for every new thing.
Would you support drunk driving laws that let drunk drivers who don't injure anybody off with a small ticket equivalent to a parking ticket, and only those who injure someone get their license revoked, jail time, etc?
Would you support a system where the state can find a reason to arrest you whenever they feel like, and arbitrarily enforce it against people they don't like?
Knowing all the laws would be difficult. Knowing all the laws about your hobby, that apply where you engage in it should be simple.
There was huge efforts to education people about drunk driving, and we've ramped up the penalties over time.
I don't believe this "no one can claim ignorance of the law" argument either. It's not like the government goes out of its way to teach people the rules or their rationale. The government shouldn't be able to simply invent some random rule and start arresting people.
Presumably pilots are required to learn them.
The vast majority of "Drones" spotted from aircraft are not really drones, they are birds or plastic bags or a figment of the imagination.
"Felony" does not equal "Federal Crime" and state lawmakers do not have the power to make anything a federal crime.
Update: Above is correct, but article implied it is Colorado state lawmakers proposing this. In fact it is Colorado's federal congresspeople proposing it, and they are indeed proposing that it be a federal felony.
Drones are a real thing now. We can either require drones to have someone walking in front carrying a red flag, or we can introduce roads, traffic laws, police.
The FAA is probably a good place to start, but someday soon every drone needs to have a registered id number, and to start screaming if it goes out the globally agreed geofences that are delegated to local administrations.
Basically we can have the aero equivalent of Munich traffic or Mumbai traffic.
I think that this is partly training (you get in a real aeroplane you are drilled to look up flight plan data, weather and restrictions)
But it is also equipment - drones don't have transponders, the software to fly them ignores flight restrictions (or rather never has that) and so on - drones need this extra stuff out of the factory.
If drone manufacturers could work with global spectrum allocation and emergency response agencies, maybe they could avoid big legislative hammers.
I wonder if some drone system that flies swarms of drones and drops nitrogen pellets that suck out oxygen could fight fires.
I'm waiting for someone to develop drones that swarm like starlings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY). You could take down an entire battlegroup with a couple thousand suicide drones.
You'd need way too much nitrogen for this. Basically it would heat up and change into gas form seconds after the pellet is anywhere near the fire. Fires, especially large ones, create massive amounts of hot air.
Do you recommend that the State stop homeowners from saving their houses or hiring people to save their houses if their actions involve the use of drones?
The government always resorts to banning or controlling new things. As a general rule, they're wrong; and their motivation is not the protection of your life, liberty, or property.
Yes. You don't get to hold up containment efforts for potentially thousands of homes because you believe that your home is more important. Private firefighters are fine, but they can't impede real emergency personnel.
The thousands of people who lost their homes during Colorado fires while some of their neighbors did not -- these victims wished they had had the right private fire insurance instead of only your "real" personnel.
Using drones to observe specific fire activity around one's private property is entirely legitimate and can save both lives and assets. The State should remain neutral -- or encourage their useful uses; neither limit nor ban them.
[added] If you're downvoting this you obviously have not lived through a Colorado wildfire and do not personally know victims of those fires. Even the public firefighters have expressed appreciation for the private firefighters' work.
And saving a home from the flames does not somehow disrupt containment! Do you know anything about fighting wildfires?
We are not going to change how our entire society runs over private use of drones near fires, and so your argument that we should be running society differently counts for zero when we decide how drones should be handled in the context of our society.
Saying that we should just all be individuals and this society stuff is dumb anyway is about as useful as the people on stack overflow who tell you to use a different stack, even when you said that its a constraint on your problem space
Maybe they should have wished they hadn't bought homes in such a risky place.
Love to jeopardize firefighting aircraft crew lives because I love my stuff so much and have more money than sense.
How dare they pay for private firefighters to save their own home?
How dare they even consider using modern technology to help track and fight the wildfire so they can save their own home?
Thanks for the confession.
Seriously, you keep forgetting the point that they are not an island. Their actions have effects on other people, as well.
You should give up this totalitarian impulse to have the government control all uses of drones by private parties regardless of circumstances, just because there happens to be a fire nearby. Many things can be dangerous if improperly used, which does not grant power to the State to ban their every use under the pretense of emergency conditions.
Solipsism is a hell of a way to go through life, kid.