Drones: Coming Soon To the New Jersey Turnpike? 249
redletterdave writes "The FAA predicts 30,000 drones will patrol the US skies by 2020, but New Jersey drivers could see these unmanned aerial vehicles hovering above the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway much sooner than that. New Jersey lawmakers from both Republican and Democratic parties have introduced a number of bills to tackle the drones issue before the federal government starts issuing the first domestic drone permits in September 2015."
Re:Risk vs. Reward? (Score:4, Informative)
In addition to that, what is it going to do with an already over stressed Air Traffic Control system?
The ATC system is "over stressed" because of large numbers of commercial flights, of which the majority are shipping. UPS, DHS, FedEx... they all have larger fleets than any commercial airline you're flying.
Drones don't need runway clearances, etc., and as long as they maintain flight separation (vertical and horizontal) in controlled airspace they're a non-event. ATC could care less -- they probably wouldn't even be on radar anyway, since to my knowledge they don't carry transponders. Remember that guy who decided to go hook up a bunch of weather balloons and float through the LAX holding pattern? Their first indication of trouble was a pilot radioing that he saw some guy with a shotgun float by the window sucking down a beer.
Controllers don't usually look at the actual radar. It's all transponders. You could fly an aircraft carrier through the flight corridor and it would go unnoticed by ATC until someone called it in. -_-
Re:Risk vs. Reward? (Score:4, Informative)
What is a "safe speed" anyway?
Speed limits are NOT set to safe speeds. They are set to maximize revenues. The 85th percentile was the standard, before politicians got involved in speed limits. Open up a highway, and post no speed limits at all. Monitor the speeds at which people travel. After a period of time, set the speed at the 85th percentile, and you have a safe speed. In the case of a blind curve or something, you should post a lower limit as a warning.
Enforcing the law just because it is the law is moronic. Change the law.
One of the first lessons of leaderships is, "Never give an order that you know will not be obeyed." Ask any military officer of NCO/petty officer.
You know, I know, everyone in America knows that the nationwide 55 mph limit was ignored while it was in effect. Ditto with many speed limits around the nation.
Go back to the 85th percentile, then aggressively go after people who break THAT law. Stop robbing people for conforming to the flow of traffic.
Re:Risk vs. Reward? (Score:4, Informative)
I would hazard a guess that we have roughly the same percentage of morons driving to fast for conditions as can be found in Europe, Asia, or anywhere else.
Your guess would be wrong. American roads are among the safest in the world. There are a few countries in North Europe that are better, but nearly everywhere else is far worse. Citation:List of countries by traffic related death rate [wikipedia.org]. When you look at this chart, you should ignore the meaningless raw death rate (many countries have few cars) and instead look at the number of deaths per 100k cars or number of deaths per billion miles driven.
Will somebody please RTFA for once? (Score:5, Informative)
The summary is mostly to blame here, because it leads you to believe the exact opposite of what's happening in the NJ state legislature - namely, that the bills introduced are all to RESTRICT drone usage in NJ. Even the least restrictive proposal seeks to require a warrant for their use and outright bans them for use in traffic or speed limit violation instances. The most restrictive seeks to ban them completely from the state.
Thanks for jumping the gun, everyone, and assuming that there's going to be speeding tickets handed out via drones in NJ. Blame slashdot if you want, but in the end, you're the morons for not RTFA.
Re:Risk vs. Reward? (Score:4, Informative)
They can in the UK, where they're networked together and know how far apart they are.
If you show up at camera #2 before camera #1 told it you'd be there, that's a ticket.