[Jiggly]

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Drone users in the UK will be required to do safety awareness tests as part of planned new legislation on their usage. The proposed bill - to be published in spring 2018 - would ensure that owners of drones weighing more than 250g would need to register and sit a test. Owners would be banned from flying them near airports or at heights above 400ft. Police could also get new powers to ground and seize drones if they suspect they had been used in criminal activity.

Any drone users on SL? I can see why drones can become a problem, though the idea of British police seizing drones is somewhat amusing.

[Cyber Warrior]

Just yesterday I was searching the net for drones, I'm thinking to get one. But I agree that drones should be well regulated by law, just imagine people flying drones over your head constantly, you wouldn't feel comfortable definitely.

[mothered]

I believe this Is very much appropriate and justified.

Training and awareness can make all the difference In safety when operating a given drone.

[BurritoBeans]

I have to say, while sure there's the small part of my head that's saying "don't touch my drones government" I think that integrating a safety course or test would be a fairly good idea.

Now I don't know about the UK since the longest I've ever been there is a week or two at a time, but I know the US stuff... Currently, the FAA registration process doesn't do that much - all you do is give them some money, agree to not do what they say you shouldn't do, and bam you're good to fly your drone as long as it's not for commercial use and above 0.55lbs (250g) but below 55lbs (~24.95kg) and doesn't go above 400' of where you are or faster than 100mph within 5 miles of certain places (If it's under 250g/0.55lb well you don't need any of that). Past that, pretty much all you're doing is agreeing to the fact that if you screw up bad enough or are suspected to be using the drone for malicious purposes you will get hit with a fine/jail and the stuff will be seized... If they were to add a test or course in, well I think it would fix a lot of the things that end up leading to much larger issues once people get used to doing them.

If anything I'd hope they'd teach basic operation safety at the very least, be it you just have to read a book and take a test on a computer like its a drivers permit or have to actually go and show them - I've seen many people make the dumbest/most obvious mistakes and get injured many times... I don't know why, but it seems like thinking that grabbing something that's spinning 8"+ hard plastic/carbon fiber props at 6500+ RPM by one of the rounded legs is a good idea, and that it won't have a good chance at destabilizing and flopping downwards which will end up slicing your arm open... I've watched and advised against this crap so many times be it in a park or at events, and 99% of those times the person who did it had to go get stitches and pay some nice medical bills because of that. Alongside fixing the issue of people hurting themselves because they don't want to land the thing properly, it would probably also stop the amount of people who just go fly the things in restricted airspace without any care in the world causing issues for the places (generally airports) and occasionally landing some nice big fines on the offender.

I've been running the things for ~3.5 years now, I have two ZMR250-based racers, a hexacopter just for hoisting my gopro, many tiny toy drones, and have the certificate/went through the TSA vetting process so I can work with a few friends on our UAS doing commercial flying for things like aerial photography, etc. - it's a lot of fun and I'd rather not have a ton of regulation or process to get into the stuff like it's a full-on pilots license, but I do think that adding in something like a course or test would help with a lot.

[Jiggly]

I have to say, while sure there's the small part of my head that's saying "don't touch my drones government" I think that integrating a safety course or test would be a fairly good idea.

Now I don't know about the UK since the longest I've ever been there is a week or two at a time, but I know the US stuff... Currently, the FAA registration process doesn't do that much - all you do is give them some money, agree to not do what they say you shouldn't do, and bam you're good to fly your drone as long as it's not for commercial use and above 0.55lbs (250g) but below 55lbs (~24.95kg) and doesn't go above 400' of where you are or faster than 100mph within 5 miles of certain places (If it's under 250g/0.55lb well you don't need any of that). Past that, pretty much all you're doing is agreeing to the fact that if you screw up bad enough or are suspected to be using the drone for malicious purposes you will get hit with a fine/jail and the stuff will be seized... If they were to add a test or course in, well I think it would fix a lot of the things that end up leading to much larger issues once people get used to doing them.

If anything I'd hope they'd teach basic operation safety at the very least, be it you just have to read a book and take a test on a computer like its a drivers permit or have to actually go and show them - I've seen many people make the dumbest/most obvious mistakes and get injured many times... I don't know why, but it seems like thinking that grabbing something that's spinning 8"+ hard plastic/carbon fiber props at 6500+ RPM by one of the rounded legs is a good idea, and that it won't have a good chance at destabilizing and flopping downwards which will end up slicing your arm open... I've watched and advised against this crap so many times be it in a park or at events, and 99% of those times the person who did it had to go get stitches and pay some nice medical bills because of that. Alongside fixing the issue of people hurting themselves because they don't want to land the thing properly, it would probably also stop the amount of people who just go fly the things in restricted airspace without any care in the world causing issues for the places (generally airports) and occasionally landing some nice big fines on the offender.

I've been running the things for ~3.5 years now, I have two ZMR250-based racers, a hexacopter just for hoisting my gopro, many tiny toy drones, and have the certificate/went through the TSA vetting process so I can work with a few friends on our UAS doing commercial flying for things like aerial photography, etc. - it's a lot of fun and I'd rather not have a ton of regulation or process to get into the stuff like it's a full-on pilots license, but I do think that adding in something like a course or test would help with a lot.

For those of us with a short attention span: tl;dr: drones can fuck shit up, bad. So training is a good idea.

Tbh, training in a lot of things is generally useful. It helps with accountability too. Also, I suspect mandatory training probably costs a bit less than having to file charges/spend the manpower fixing shit when it goes wrong. Preventative measures are often less expensive in the long run