Japan outlaws flying drones while drunk | Hacker News Reader

Japan outlaws flying drones while drunk

bbc.co.uk

81 pointsheadalgorithm65 comments

"We believe operating drones after consuming alcohol is as serious as (drink) driving," a Japanese transport ministry official told the AFP news agency.

I'm assuming this is due to translation, surely this is hyperbolic and not serious. I don't think this is a bad law, people should be sober when piloting a drone, but how in any way is a drone comparable to the danger posed by a drunk driver?

Spinning rotors and likely vector for a bystander impact is from above (i.e. Head)

I know Japanese cars tend to be smaller than the monstrosities common in the US, but even a small car will weigh >1000lbs. That's enough kinetic energy that even someone in another car is at risk, whereas anyone in a car is nearly invulnerable to a consumer drone. I definitely don't want to be struck by a drone, but given the choice between a car accident and drone accident, I'll take the drone any day.

Wait are we comparing drone on car impacts now?

Quite a few drunk driving deaths are car-on-car, so it seemed a reasonable comparison to make. Although I would suspect the majority of drone accidents are drone-on-human, but even in that case car-on-pedestrian is far more lethal.

A collision between a drone and a windshield is plenty to cause a serious accident.

Outside of military aircraft drone related deaths are extremely rare. Skulls can survive fairly heavy impacts relative to most drones. Randomly falling drones are also unlikely to hit someone outside the most densely packed crowds.

So, while drunk droning may be a safety hazard, it’s vastly less risky than drunk driving.

>Randomly falling drones are also unlikely to hit someone outside the most densely packed crowds.

Like those found in many Japanese cities?

Japanese drones are already banned in areas with over 4,000 people per km^2.

And it’s already outlawed over cities in Japan.

I'd see them as a cause of traffic accidents/injuries by distraction.

Just as being drunk in public is already a finable offence I think, as is causing disagreements on the public space.

Yes, they're rare because you're not sampling over the set of people operating them while drunk.

That’s likely to underestimate risks as there does not seem to be any deaths related to drunk drone operators.

With how many drones have been sold worldwide, if drones where even vaguely as dangerous as cars per hour we could easily find hundreds of deaths. So, even hypothetically cars are at minimum hundreds of times more dangerous.

Same logic as riding a bicycle _under the influence of alcohol_ is against the law in Japan.

Edit: clarified

Never heard that one...

It's not,that all bikes are disallowed, it's that riding a bicycle while drunk is against the law. And they have pretty stiff fines, comparable to drunk driving tickets: https://jpninfo.com/76265

Mind giving a source? Me and thousands of other university students in here would like to disagree.

It's against the law in many places in the US as well, but I've never heard of it enforced. I'm sure most people would rather have drunks on bikes than cars.

I suspect the main reason is to ensure the driver of a car is not liable if they hit a drunk cyclist.

It’s illegal but rarely enforced. If you hit a person while biking drunk you will likely be in a world of shit.

Unlikely unless you accidently kill /injure some one and then only if the family has a lot of $ for a private prosecution.

The original post stated cycling was illegal in japan.

Same in Austria: bikes/ebikes/scooters and scateboards have a alcohol limit of 0.8 permille. Drone piloting I believe has 0.0.

Bicycles generally share footpaths with pedestrians, so drunk riding can be dangerous to other people. Bicycle laws are rarely enforced in any case

In Germany you can even lose your driver's license when riding a bike drunk (but you have to be very drunk.. more than 1.6 per mille).

What if you do not have a drivers license? You just get a fine?

A repeat offender would eventually be barred from any participation in traffic other than walking. Basically a form of restraining order, with the same limited effectivity.

Fortunately the law is still acknowledging that drunk cycling is much less bad than drunk driving (and often the only practical alternative besides sobriety), so you'd have to go pretty wild to ever get more than maybe a fine. Unfortunately, this view is increasingly under pressure from the kind of "enemy of the good" perfectionists who always ignore the big picture.

Same in the US

Depends on the state. In Washington(state) riding a bike while drunk is legal. The police can stop you an offer you a ride to your destination. If the drunk cyclist declines the offer, they're free to go unless the officer believes they are a hazard to the public, in which case the bicycle can be impounded if necessary. But the cyclist won't get a DUI for it.

That seems quite reasonable.

Drunk drivers don't close down airports.

You're right, they just kill people.

They could if they ran a car onto the runway.

As someone who owns a few drones, I'm quite afraid of them. The racing ones are much more dangerous, but the pilots also tend to be much more responsible. The rotors can definitely cut flesh, which is why everyone has the "disarm" switch (which completely kills rotor power instantly) in the most easily accessible place on their controller. These, I'm not worried about, because every person I've seen flying one has always done it far away from people, and very very carefully.

The automatic drones are the ones I'm afraid of most, due to the posts I've seen on groups I'm a member of. They take no skill to fly, so people fly them without understanding. I've seen people disable the sensors and flying them a few centimeters from people's faces, where a slight gust of wind will mean permanent disfigurement. I've seen people fly them close to trees, next to wires over people, and a thousand other dangerous situations.

Whenever I see that a law forbids me from flying and taking photos, I initially curse the lawmakers and then realize that the same law protects me from the thousands of irresponsible drone owners, and I feel a bit better.

On that note, I wonder how long it'll be before we have real-life Half-Life-2-style Manhacks?

A month lead time ready made-to-order.

https://www.bostondynamics.com/

Most people that think about the effects of drink-n-driving tend to link it to deaths. In reality, a majority of the cost is tied to public/private property damage. In that case, it is valid to argue that a drunk drone pilot can incur serious damage to electrical grids, increased odds of moving the drone to heights associated with airplanes/helicopters among many other issues.

I think you'd be surprised, as I was, if you looked at the statistics on how dangerous driving under the influence is.

At 0.10% the accident rate is approximately 5x baseline.

It's unfortunate that they're outlawing it based on the weight of the drone being more than 200 grams.

A soccer ball is around 450 grams, and even when it falls at terminal velocity on your head it's not going to kill you.

Of course that's not true of most 450 gram drones now, since they have external spinning blades and sharp or stabby surfaces.

But if they instead defined some sort of crash test one might imagine even a 2 kg drone being relatively harmless if it e.g. was cushioned by styrofoam and had internal propellers. A law that tested for the potential harm would create a market for creating safer drones.

Don’t understand why countries don’t keep it simple. If you are drunk you can’t operate any type of machinery or work, wait better can’t run a country as president or prime minister. Also, I forgot, you can’t vote in any parliament. Just one law.

I can't wait for groups of friend to have "Designated Drone Operators" to hand over the controls to if the police ever question them as to why the machine was operating so erratically.

Has this been a problem in Japan?

Don't Drunk Drone.

Japan shouldn't really be passing laws while drunk.

Dont drink and drone.

Fun ambiguity in outlaws (verb) versus outlaws (noun) in this headline.

Alternatively, all flying drones have been outlawed in Japan and the country has run out of saki.

Wouldn't it be Japanese outlaws in case of noun? CMIW.

Yes, Japanese is an adjective that would modify "outlaws" while Japan is a proper noun itself.

Yet funnier: the headline is ambiguous at the grammatical level, but the meaning is not ambiguous! In both interpretations, you have the exact same situation of people flying drones illegally while drunk in japan.

Alternative interpretation: The government of Japan was collectively drunk and completely outlawed the flying of drones

True, a correct interpretation, but so preposterous it can be ruled out. :-)

Cute, but not really. In one situation, we have people illegally flying drones drunk. It may have been illegal since forever, and people recently started doing it. In the other situation, the government recently passed a law - but that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone is breaking it.

Porco Rosso remake

I was hoping to see footage of some outlaws flying drones while drunk.

As with everything Japan does, this seems like a very sensible thing to do.

This seems a little weird to me. Modern drones are pretty much autonomous vehicles that receive behavior suggestions from their controller. Unlike cars and airplanes, they don't continuously rely on reaction times to stay in control.

Yes, a drunk person could pilot a drone into something, but it takes some effort. A drunk person could throw a rock at someone, but we don't ban drunks from carrying rocks.

This law would sound more compelling if there was a rash of drunken drone injuries.

"Modern drones are pretty much autonomous vehicles that receive behavior suggestions from their controller."

So are modern planes. I wouldn't like my pilots to be drunk.

"Yes, a drunk person could pilot a drone into something, but it takes some effort."

I am not sure what drones have you been piloting: your anecdotal experience does not match mine.

Depends on the drone. I have a commercial DJI drone that has sensors and a nice easy mode that will stop you crashing into stuff (at least forwards and backwards, there are no side sensors). But it also has a "sport" mode that disables the sensors to allow faster flight.

I also have a home built racing drone that has no anti crash sensors, very little natural stabilty and can fly about twice as fast. It's insanely fun to fly, but believe me it requires very quick reactions and I crash it regular even when sober.

>Anyone failing to abide by the established regulations could face a fine of up to 500,000 yen.

Surprisingly cheap. So, with financial muscle to exercise, this effectively means doing whatever you want with a drone.

Cheap? That's over 4600 dollar...

This excludes the riffraff only. If you're, say, a business, then you can do this assuming an additional variable cost up to that amount. It's seriously cheap.

Do you see businesses doing this?

Illegal, for-profit drone abuse? Yes, absolutely.

Where I live (The Netherlands), if you get caught driving while intoxicated it doesn't really matter if you're operating a business vehicle or not (except lorry/bus drivers for obvious reasons). I don't see why operating a drone while being intoxicated AND on the job should be fined higher than doing the same in your free time.

I still think 4600 dollars is pretty hefty, especially considering the risk (fairly low compared to drunk driving) and occurrance. And your argument that businesses or rich people can break the law because they can afford to... well, the same could be said about every other crime I guess.

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