Councilmen Introduce Bills Strongly Regulating UAV Use in NYC

SternisheFan passes on this excerpt from an Ars Technica article: On Wednesday Councilman Dan Garodnick introduced a bill to the New York City council seeking to ban all use of drones except those operated by police officers who obtain warrants. A second, parallel bill introduced by councilman Paul Vallone would place more stringent restrictions on drone use but stop short of banning drones for hobbyists and companies altogether. Both bills have been passed to the city's committee on public safety. An all-out ban on drones within the metropolis would be a quite wide-reaching step, especially as the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) seems poised to adopt more permissive rules, with respect to commercial interests in particular. Earlier this year, the FAA formally granted six Hollywood companies exemptions to drone ban rules. A couple of months later, the FAA granted similar exemptions for construction site monitoring and oil rig flare stack inspections. The article explains that Vallone's bill is less restrictive, and rather than propose an outright ban "lists 10 instances where operating a UAV would be illegal, including at night, out of the operator's eyesight, or above 400 ft high. Outside of those conditions, hobbyists and commercial interests would be free to fly drones."

Comments

hooray for the government

[jehan60188]

I'm so glad our benevolent overlords are here to keep us safe!
Banning things like UAVs, guns, and large sodas is definitely the best way to keep citizens (who are all too stupid to make their own decisions) healthy.
But thank goodness cops can still use guns and UAVs; they never abuse their power, and are always fully trained, so we know nothing could possibly go wrong!

Never mind educating and empowering them to make their own decisions, who has time for that?! No, we citizens want to be spoon fed. And as long as we have a good TV signal while american idol is on, we won't really care what you do to us

Re: hooray for the government

[Anonymous Coward]

If gun bans work, then please explain Chicago.

Re:hooray for the government

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Banning things like UAVs, guns, and large sodas is definitely the best way to keep citizens (who are all too stupid to make their own decisions) healthy.

UAVs and guns have pretty obvious externalities. Why wouldn't you want to regulate them?

Re:hooray for the government

[peragrin]

And when you die in a fiery plane crash as an idiot UAV operator flew too close to a jet and got pulled into the engine during landing. Never mind that is illegal to operate there drone pilots can do it all.

I saw a drone video from inside a firework display and al I could think of does that idiot realize he is flying through a flak field and if just one firework hits the drone that drone is free falling back to the ground. Sure fireworks are poor flak by shooting cardboard, but Murphy is a tough bastard.

Re:hooray for the government

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, "externality", the magic word employed by the nanny state. It has the most effect when used incorrectly.

Pollution from coal plants or vehicle emissions is an externality. The crap you list above is not an externality.

Re:hooray for the government

[blue9steel]

Regulations aren't the best solution for every problem. That said, I don't necessarily think some basic rules on drones are a bad idea. This action is going way too far though. It's like gun regulations, requiring that someone pass a gun safety class is sensible, telling them they can't have their gun with them anywhere except in their home is not.

Re:hooray for the government

[dywolf]

oh please.
stow your insanity for a moment.

differing classes of rules based on size and type make sense.
and standard "congested area" rules are just common sense.
licenses or other certs in specific circumstances also make sense.

unregulated use by an unlicensed individual in a city like NYC means eventually someone will fly a 100+lb drone down Park Avenue and have it crash on someones head.
or worse two of them due to collision.

public safety/endangerment rules always in place would largely cover a lot of it, but they would leave a lot open to the interpretation and discretion of the individuals responsible for enforcement (most likely NYPD).

so creating some rules that actually spell it out, and make the appropriate concessions for commercial use, ensure operators and their devices arent a danger, and provide common sense exceptions for recreational use in Central Park, all fall within the purview of City Council (or w/e NYC has), and is simply rational rules making and is in the public interest.

Re:hooray for the government

[ColdWetDog]

Guns are an externality. If 5% of the population is walking around with a concealed weapon, the muggers and stranglers won't know that I don't have one and I'll enjoy the deterrent despite not contributing anything.

UAVs are potentially an externality because they can do physical damage anonymously for the cost of the UAV.

One of these objects is not like the others ....

Re:hooray for the government

[ColdWetDog]

Further, not everything landing at an airport is as large or as robust as a commercial jet aircraft. A light plane could easily be severely damaged by a small UAV. Likely, no - I've been in small planes hit by birds - we've survived but it's not a given.

UAVs have no business anywhere in a controlled airspace unless they are under control of a qualified operator AND other pilots know it's in the air. Now, that doesn't answer the question whether somebody should (or shouldn't) be allowed to play with their Phantom II in the neighborhood park. Those things, with the operator using a modicum of common sense, are pretty safe. The problem is the phrase 'modicum of common sense'. We all know that some random jackass is going to lose control of the thing, turn a poodle into poodle-chops or knock a Vespa into oncoming traffic.

While the cretins in /b/ might think it funny, the rest of the planet might take offense at that sort of behavior. Hence, regulation.

This is why it's hard to have nice things.

Re:hooray for the government

[occasional_dabbler]

One of the institutions of which our colonial cousins should be very proud is the FAA, who make all the aerospace regulations freely available. These may seem like archaic and restrictive laws to prevent you from building your own aeroplane/rocket/drone but in fact they are extremely well researched and analysed specifications for anyone who wants to make a safe aeroplane/rocket/drone. They are also copied pretty much verbatim by everyone except the Russians (who have a similar system but with significantly worse weather!) and us Europeans, who go to great lengths to harmonise with the FAA so that the rules are more or less equivalent

So let's get to details and look at 33.76 regarding bird strike. The rules regarding what an aircraft engine should be able to ingest are enlightening: even the largest engines are only certified safe to fly after ingesting a bird of 8lb. This is a lot less than a person (that was a ridiculous example from the GP; ingesting a person would destroy an engine). Birds are obviously a lot more easily ingested than a carbon-fibre and steel drone.

Any reasonably large drone would have enough mass to endanger a civil airliner and you're just playing the numbers until one is brought down with three to four hundred deaths.

Re:hooray for the government

[ScentCone]

Gun bans do work and work well.

Not really. Ask any of the dead people in Chicago, where despite very (and even unconstitutionally) severe restrictions, the local thuggery manages to shoot itself up quite regularly. On the other hand, you've got places where guns are readily available (legally) and routinely carried in cars and on person, and which have very low violent crime rates. It's not about guns, and it's never been about guns. It's about culture and law enforcement. Chicago has a violent subculture and no interest in dealing with it. The results are self-evident.

Re:hooray for the government

[ScentCone]

UAVs are potentially an externality because they can do physical damage anonymously for the cost of the UAV.

Yeah, just like a brick thrown from an overpass or a 40th-floor window - and that costs a fraction of the price of a single UAV battery. Why aren't you in favor of banning bricks? Or would you be happy with simply registering, with photo ID and fingerprints on file, the ownership of all objects that have enough mass to be dangerous?

Re:hooray for the government

[occasional_dabbler]

My reply appeared above your comment, for some reason... Bird strike inside of the FAA rules should be acceptable as an everyday occurence (laundry bills aside). 1549 was outside of these rules (many more birds hitting both engines) and it was a lucky escape; a very experienced pilot and a suitable place for a ditching (The first well-observed and survivable ditching in maybe 50 years? - it was by no means certain that ditching was a safe manoevre; all the substantiation was from scale model tests and simulation - no full-size tests).

To be quite blunt: if a bird of 8lb goes into your engine you're ok, if a bird of 9lb goes into your engine there's no guarantee. If the bird's bigger brother goes down the other engine then you're in the realms of statistical probabilities and prayer.

Re:hooray for the government

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Regulations aren't the best solution for every problem.

Never said they were. I do think they are (a part of) the best solution for these problems.

This action is going way too far though

The outright ban may be, but the ban on going to high, flying out of sight or flying at night?

Look, either the city needs to license drones and/or drone pilots, or they need to limit the damage that can be done.

Re:hooray for the government

[ScentCone]

externalities

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

But it sure does make you sound like an eager moral relativist.

Re:hooray for the government

[ScentCone]

No, I'm focused DIRECTLY on your comment. Which is peppered with the pretentious and (in this context) meaningless word "externalities" - in an attempt to make it sound like you're constructing an argument, when you're actually not. When you're not saying anything, the only thing to focus on IS the blather and the blatherer.

Re: hooray for the government

[dywolf]

Yes. Let's look at Chicago.

Such as this graph: http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfro...

Seems Chicago isnt the hotbed of crime it's been made out to be.
Their gun ban was in effect from 1982 to 2010, when it struck down.
The recent uptick in homocides occured -AFTER- the gun ban was struck down,
so if there is any correlation to drawn (and im not saying there is), its not the one you are trying for.

Chicago homocides peaked in early 90s, with the increase and subsequent decrease matching the peak in crime around teh country, both in locations with and without gun bans. The recent uptick is nothing like the historical crime rates.

Or as summed up at http://thinkprogress.org/justi... :

Most significantly, it is important to understand that Chicago is not an island. Although Chicago has historically had strict gun laws, laws in the surrounding parts of Illinois [incuding the suburbs of Chicago] were much laxer — enabling middlemen to supply the criminals in Chicago with guns they purchased elsewhere. Forty three percent of the guns seized by law enforcement in Chicago were originally purchased in other parts of Illinois. And even if the state had stricter gun laws, Illinois is not an island either. The remaining fifty seven percent of Chicago guns all came from out of state, most significantly from nearby Indiana and distant Mississippi — neither of which are known for their strict gun laws.

It’s also important to put Chicago’s very recent increase in gun violence in perspective. Data from the University of Chicago Crime Lab’s Harold Pollack shows that this uptick, while certainly worrying, isn’t anything like a return to the historic peaks during America’s crime wave. Pollack notes that “Chicago ranks 79th on Neighborhood Scout’s list of the 100 most dangerous places to live in Americathe idea that Chicago faces a unique or unprecedented rise in homicides is incorrect. Our problems are all too familiar and chronic throughout much of urban America.” Chicago, following the national trend, has experienced a significant downturn in homicides in the past decade and a half:

And there was event a report into what caused the the 2012 spike in homocides, which was chiefly a result of an uptick in gang violence:

he points to three factors are particularly important: escalating gang conflict as a consequence of police crackdowns and shifting gang territory, outdated law enforcement practices, and — yes — access to guns.
[..]
Chicago’s streets are flooded with guns: it has roughly six times as many guns as New York City per capita, despite its restrictive laws. So if gang conflict escalates, and the gangs have easy access to guns, the homicide rate should rise. This explanation fits with the fact that 87 percent of Chicago homicides in 2012 were gun-related. New York, by contrast, did not experience a surge in homicides in 2012.

The guns that fueled this fire came from a small number of individuals bringing guns into the city. A study of Chicago’s gun market (which, incidentally, concluded that tight enforcement of Chicago’s gun ban and restrictions significantly disrupted illegal gun markets) found that most of guns in high-crime neighborhoods entered through a small, tight network of suppliers and middlemen: “Gun suppliers report that 60-80% of their sales are negotiated through brokers (we assume the 80% figure) and by our own estimates gun suppliers account for around half of all gun sales in the GB community.” Because most criminals weren’t comfortable going out of their neighborhoods to buy guns, and Chicago had no gun stores in the city, they relied on this network to get them guns from outside of Chicago.

Outside those conditions?

[dj245]

Outside of those conditions, hobbyists and commercial interests would be free to fly drones."

I hope he meant "inside" or possibly "under" those conditions. I'm normally not that hung up on grammar but this is the opposite of what was probably meant.

Re:Outside those conditions?

[mhotchin]

I think the construction is correct. The proposed legislation lists conditions under which UAV flight is banned, rather than allowed. So, you need to be outside those conditions to be OK.

Should let them work inside parks.

[gurps_npc]

Most people take the drones to parks to play with them anyway. So letting people use them inside official parks, like Central Park, and Prospect Park would be a simple, fair compromise.

Re:Should let them work inside parks.

[jehan60188]

just like those designated "free speech areas" the government likes to set up, right?

Re:Should let them work inside parks.

[Actually, I do RTFA]

No, like those concrete path thingies that people follow with their fantastical "horseless carriages"

Re:Should let them work inside parks.

[budgenator]

Oh good grief people read the article,

No person may avigate a UAV within the limits of the city except:
        1. The police department in accordance with section 14-133.1.
        2. A person avigating such UAV pursuant to and within the limits of an express authorization by the federal aviation administration.

basically a grandstanding city Councilman introduced a statute making it illegal to operate a UAV anywhere it is all ready illegal to operate a UAV!

Re:Should let them work inside parks.

[suutar]

depends on the definition of "express authorization". Is "It's not against FAA regs if you avoid these situations" an express authorization, or does it take a piece of paper signed by the FAA saying "you are allowed to fly drones"?

Re:Should let them work inside parks.

[gurps_npc]

Free speech is a constitutional right and has no business being restricted in any way. Similarly, flying aircraft - manned or unmanned is constitutionally totally unmentioned.

Which means that it is totally reasonable to restrict drones, but not at all reasonable to restrict speech.

What's next - you gonna bring up hitler?

Re:Should let them work inside parks.

[ScentCone]

Where is it in the constitution that flying a drone is a protected right?

Ah, another person who never went to school, or certainly wasn't paying attention.

Your rights are not defined in the constitution. The constitution exists to limit the government's power to interfere with your liberty. Some of those liberties are so important that they are also mentioned by name (the right to liberty that by definition includes the right to speak, assemble, protect yourself, etc). Only leftist idiots think that it's the government that grants you your rights. That's 100% Nanny State backwards. Please do not vote.

Re:Should let them work inside parks.

[budgenator]

Well yes I understand that, yet when Jan Brewer down in Arizona did the same thing with immigration it was a BadThing(Tm).

Re:Should let them work inside parks.

[ultranova]

The constitution exists to limit the government's power to interfere with your liberty.

Specifically, it can only do so if it thinks it's for the best ("general welfare") or might have any effect whatsoever ("interstate trade").

Only leftist idiots think that it's the government that grants you your rights.

The government doesn't grant people rights, but it oversees and manages the web of institutions which enforce them. The property rights right wing so adores don't mean a thing in a jungle.

That's 100% Nanny State backwards.

"Nanny State" exists because of Gilded Age. Every time economic controls are loosened, it leads to wealth concentration and eventual collapse. It's what's happening right now, and will only end with re-instatement of a Nanny State strong enough to enforce sufficient redistribution of income.

Never mind drones

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the Slashdot poll?

Re: here's a better idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that everything in politics revolves around money. These guys get to the top using money and create laws based on money. So, sorry. If you have enough money to buy yourself the laws you want you likely don't care about flying a drone in a park.

Seems legit

[Anonymous Coward]

Frank this seems to be one of the more reasonable approaches to regulating UAV usage (The permissive bill that is). It makes sense that as a hobbyist you wouldn't want to fly a drone at night/out of sight/above 400 feet. Visibility of a drone's surroundings is already difficult, let alone in tougher situations.

Re:Seems legit

[budgenator]

So that would preclude FPV . FPV is an acronym meaning "First Person View". A person referring to "flying FPV" is referring to piloting their model aircraft from a first person perspective onboard. This is accomplished by means of tiny video cameras and wireless RF links. The typical FPV plane consists of many components that must work well together to get the job done. In this case the drone may be out of sight (behind a tree), but the person flying the mulit-rotor vehicle may have a better view than if he was flying by sight.

Remotely controlled aerial vehicle must be under direct visual observation at all time per FAA regulations.

With respect to UAS used as model aircraft, the FAA reiterated the operating guidelines in AC 91-57, and further noted that to qualify as a model aircraft, the aircraft would need to be operated purely for recreational or hobby purposes, and within the visual line of sight of the operator.
The policy statement also clarified that AC 91-57 applied only to modelers and “specifically excludes its use by persons or companies for business purposes.” 72 FR at 6690
Interpretation of the Special Rule for Model Aircraft

so if you fly behind a tree and lose the visual line of sight, your operating outside the FAA guidelines and I suspect that any system permitting FPV from a UAS affordable by a hobbyist or small or medium bussiness would only be capable of transmitting on a strictly line of sight basis and any obstructions in the LOS would cause losse of the video transmission.

FAA has sole jurisdiction

[gavron]

In the United States the Federal Aviation Administration is the entity with jurisdiction over all airspace SURFACE to SPACE*

This has been discussed on slashdot so many times in the last year wrt drones and FAA authority that it's beating a dead horse.

NY Councilmen can posture and mumble and pass laws all day long but they have no authority over the air.

E

* Note that this includes surface to 400ft which some people believe is magically exempt from regulation... except the FAA has recently shown it's not.

Re:Flying a drone into something is a right!

[DocSavage64109]

Not only that, but we have the right to mount cameras on said drones and see everything that goes on in peoples' apartments because it's their fault for leaving the blinds open. In fact, I need to sell an integrated camera drone / hot-chick database solution, or maybe just stream the feeds from my own army of privacy invading drones.

Re:Stupid rethuglicans restricting our rights

[budgenator]

Garodnick was elected to New York City Council in 2005, winning 63 percent of the vote in the general election and defeating both the Republican and Libertarian candidates. In the five-way Democratic primary that year he won 59% of the vote. Daniel Garodnick

I've noticed that Democrats are more likely to "pass a law" on the "issue du jour" than they are to either rationally consider whether a new law is really necessary or to hold LE and the courts accountable for enforcing the existing applicable laws.

Re:Flying a drone into something is a right!

[Morgon]

Nobody's talking about these being 'rights'. There are existing laws for privacy violations and 'peeping toms', there's absolutely no reason or need for heavy-handed over-regulation just because it's new technology. Everything in life can be used for good or for ill, they need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, not just blanket-banning the entire industry just because of some politician's twisted mind.

Re:Drones?

[DocSavage64109]

buzzwords getting out of control.

Says the A.C. drone ("2. a person who does no useful work and lives off others." and "3. a remote-controlled pilotless aircraft or missile.") who doesn't know how to use a dictionary.

UAV?

[benro03]

Did anyone else think "Urban Assault Vehicle" at first?

Re:here's a better idea.

[dywolf]

and when some idiot not using it properly crashes it into someones head, or downs a jet?
is it still then perfectly reasonable activity?
or will you suddenly realize that some common sense regulation might be perfectly reasonable?