Drones should just be made illegal

[jdoe8]

So now some criminals have escaped from prison because drones were used to drop in diamond cutting tools. There is virtually no legitimate use for these things - they are mainly used for invading peoples privacy or to enable criminal activity. It's time they were just banned IMO.

There are lots of legitimate uses.

Currently drones are being used for search and rescue operations in areas inaccessible to humans, they are also capable of carrying out basic repairs in those self same areas or taking assessments and sending information back to their controllers.

Drones are being used to conduct inspection runs on everything from aircraft to borders, again, easily and quickly sending images back to controllers.

They are being developed to monitor highways for accidents, assess environmental factors, etc etc etc.

That's just the aerial ones. The ground and underwater ones have loads of uses as well.

They have a lot of uses.

There are plenty of legitimate uses for drones. For gods sake do at least a cursory Google before issuing blanket statements like that.

To add to what has already been posted drones are being used for geological surveys. There are models being sold which are extremely heat resistant and have many different types of cameras.

They are popular with extreme sports film makers as they can follow a target and have collision avoidance built in.

Amature film makers are using them as they are cheaper than a full sized helicopter.

Thats just a few. I am sure there are many more.

I agree they need regulation. Search and rescue, monitoring highways etc - fine. Invasion of privacy by privately owned drones just for the sheer hell of it, not ok.

Hasn't but there been an interesting discussion about regulating the use of drones so that the operator (whether commercial or for leisure use) is licensed and insured as well as the drone being identifiable externally due to potential 'accidents' with other aircraft etc.?

They shouldn't be banned as they have very valuable purposes, but their use should be controlled/regulated for purely safety reasons.

If you want to rephrase your OP to say that they should be more closely controlled, then you may have a point. Dubai airport has been shut down 4 times in the last year because of drones. However, there are already steps to set up "cancellation areas" around sensitive spots like airports and prisons so that the drones will cease to work in their vicinity.

I legitimately use drones for my work.

They are used a lot by councils for inspections of building roofs as well, better for H&S than sending someone up a ladder and you have a video to review again afterwards

Also used by an event photographer I know for making promo videos and filming events from above for good ariel footage

Lots of legitimate uses but there will always be someone who uses something for a different purpose to what it was originally intended for

A friend of mine works in the film production business and they use drones a lot to do panoramic and aerial shots. These would be very complicated and expensive without drones.

I'm not sure a ban is right thing. The tech is out there now, so they'll always be available on the net. Maybe Prisons need cover nets over them or something????

Like fireworks, they should be restricted for sale to the 'authorities' only. There are no legitimate reasons a private citizen (horrible US phrase?) needs one.

YANBU

Drones are very useful and have many legitimate functions.

Like all useful things they can be used to nefarious ends.

Banning them is neither proportionate nor likely to be effective.

Hello! Here are 600,000 or so recent news reports about cars being used in robberies:

www.google.co.uk/search?q=car+used+in+robbery&tbm=nws

They need better regulation that is for sure. Drones for commercial use are, I think, fairly well regulated but private drones aren't at all.

I think banning them for private use is OTT, but it should be illegal to fly them anywhere that is not directly over your own privately owned land, so for most people, over their garden. Larger drones should require a licence.

"There are no legitimate reasons a private citizen (horrible US phrase?) needs one"

Literally not one legitimate reason? A maintenance company checking guttering without having to put up ladders? An estate agent providing a full visual of a house and its area for a prospective tenant? A photography enthusiast adding a new and exciting dimension to their hobby? A family who want to make fun videos of a day out they can enjoy?

They can be a pain, yes; they can be used for illegal purposes, yes. But to ban something because it is possible to use it anti-socially or illegally is a slippery, ridiculous slope. I find people listening to music on the beach or a picnic very annoying, but I don't think you should ban radios.

Mum borrowed ours to take photos of her new roof. FIL who gave it to us used it to photograph solar panels for his job. DP used it to entertain the dog and child while I got stuff done (in the fucking lounge, but thats a whole other issue). Friend builds drones for water/environmental surveys.

Many everyday items can be used for less than honest purposes. Banning them would open a large ethical can of worms.

YY. Cars are used by many people who shouldn't, kill and main huge numbers of people and animals, destroy the environment, and often play a critical role in criminal or terrorist acts.

We should ban cars.

They just need to require a license to operate them, in the same way radio controlled aircraft used to. They can be fantastic, unless used by idiots or criminals.

There was a suggestion (to a rather sceptical chorus) last week that manufacturers should be required to program in "no fly zones" from a list supplied by the MoJ, so that it would not be possible to fly them over prisons.

With this calibre of thinking at the top (read the comments as to how many stripes of ludicrous this fills), it's hard to be optimistic about the future.

They can be fantastic, unless used by idiots or criminals

Ha, if we're going to start banning things because they're misused by idiots there's not going to much stuff left

What about model aircraft? Kind like proto-drones, but a hobby enjoyed by thousands and thousands of people since 1950s. Are we banning them too?

Lets ban knives. Plenty of criminals use them and we will all just have to rip food apart with our hands and chew through annoying packaging.
Bring in licensing, insurances etc and concentrate on the idiots concerned. Getting ban happy is throwing the baby out with the bath water

How do you think nature programmes such as planet earth take aerial shots? It has its uses but like most things it can be abused, doesn't mean we have to ban it altogether.

Our society is increasingly becoming intolerant.

The main thing that does worry me about drones is the potential for them to collide with aircraft. A license or banning them wouldnt work it was someone with nefarious intentions, but requiring a license would help eliminate the risk of accidents caused caused by idiots.

Re knifes and cars there are laws in place over these, you can't just carry them around or buy them and use them. Drones you can.

I'm talking about the hobby people that have no insurance or training, im sure planet earth have both of these!

I agree about banning fireworks to the public also!

shop.droneflight.co.uk/pages/summary-of-uk-legal-requirements

There you can't just carry a drone around and use it either.
As with knives, cars, guns and any other object which has the potential to be misused it's the idiots that need to be dealt with, they don't need to be banned.

If it's someone with criminal intent then yes they can just buy a car or a knife and use it

It's only the law abiding that generally bother with tax, mot and insurance

Hunting knives require proof of age the same as alcohol as do kitchen knives but there is nothing to stop a criminal going into the supermarket buying a knife set and stabbing someone, but let's ban them and all just pass the Sunday roast around and bite chunks off before passing it on