Drones: Coming Soon To the New Jersey Turnpike?

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."

Comments

Too late - local papers are using them now

[WillAffleckUW]

It's too late, the local Seattle paper The Stranger is already using drones in public, under both the First Amendment (free press) and Second Amendment (Right To Bear Drones).

Wake up and smell the privacy-disabled future!

(caveat - Canadians have privacy rights, and technically the Washington State Constitution has strong privacy rights - but there are still drones)

Re:Risk vs. Reward?

[Alex Pennace]

Because if they raise the limit to 75, people will drive 85. Americans have been conditioned to believe that the "real" speed limit is at least 10 mph over the posted limit.

That is an interesting point so I did some research. I found FHWA Report No. FHWA-RD-92-084 (one source of which is at http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html but other copies agree) that says "The results of the study indicated that lowering posted speed limits by as much as 20 mi/h (32 km/h), or raising speed limits by as much as 15 mi/h (24 km/h) had little effect on motorist' speed."

I'm curious if you had any citations to confirm your statement.

Oh come on

[Bruce Perens]

Mounting things to light poles is 10,000 times more practical.

Re:Risk vs. Reward?

[dgatwood]

Because if they raise the limit to 75, people will drive 85.

And it would probably still be safe....

Americans have been conditioned to believe that the "real" speed limit is at least 10 mph over the posted limit.

Because it usually is. As far as I'm concerned, the law should simply say, "You may not travel at a speed that is unsafe for the current road conditions." Anything demanding strict conformance to a posted number (rather than driving at a speed that feels safe) is just asking for people to ignore the law... or worse.

The worst example of a highway safety law is California's 65 MPH law. Except for a few roads where it is specifically posted at 70 MPH, it is illegal to drive faster than 65 MPH in California, period. All other speed limits are flexible, depending on driving conditions. What this means is:

• If I speed in a 50 zone, if everyone is going 64 (even if that is verging on unsafe), you can potentially argue your way out of the ticket.
• If I go 66 in a 65 zone, even if everyone else is going 66, you can't argue your way out of the ticket.

So if you're running behind and trying to decide where to exceed the speed limit, you're better off speeding on the city street portions of your trip (where there are pedestrians) or the windy highways from hell (CA SR-17 with its constant switchbacks) than on the relatively safe 65 MPH stretches. In short, by any rational interpretation of California traffic laws, the 65 MPH maximum speed law is actively making the roads less safe, because on the roads where speeding would provably pose the least additional risk, the law restricts your speed in the strictest way possible, and on the roads where speeding would provably pose the most additional risk, the law restricts your speed in the most lax way possible.

And people wonder why I think traffic laws are almost entirely written by idiots.