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The Problem With Mandatory Drone Registration (roboticstrends.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Drone lawyer and commercial pilot Jonathan Rupprecht believes any drone registration plan is a necessary first step, but he's also doubtful that registering drones will be a valuable solution. "Who is going to regulate this? Point-of-sale? Wal-Mart? Best Buy?" he asked. "What if I'm ordering parts off the Internet and put them together? That's what the gun industry does." A registration number, he said, could quickly be lost if a drone is bought and sold multiple times. Rupprecht believes geofencing will produce far better results by preventing problems as opposed to trying to figure out who is responsible after something has happened.
Or at least the vast majority of people flying quadcopters aren't getting caught flying them illegally, and it's really easy to fall astray of the existing FAA regulations. Did you know it's illegal to fly over crowds? Or within a certain range of airports? Or during a number of events where the FAA may institute temporary no-fly zones? Or flying over 200ft AGL? Or for commercial purposes (unless for every quadcopter you operate you register for a special, expensive, exemption with the FAA that requires filing a very detailed disaster recovery plan, and registering for a tail number and operation requires the presence of two people, one of which must be holding an active pilot's license with the FAA, and the copter may never leave your line of sight)? Or that "commercial" use includes posting to YouTube as they monetize their videos (even if you're not)? I think there's a fairly sizeable number of people who may have unintentionally violated on of those, or other, rules about unlicensed aircraft operation.
You mean like how nobody bothers to look at the driver's manual their first time ever taking a drivers' license exam? They just say "screw it," and drive unlicensed? You think the majority of American motorists are driving that way?
Rawr