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Drone Crashes, Missing Champion Skier By Inches (cnn.com)
HughPickens.com writes: NBC reports that defending World Cup champion Marcel Hirscher, who won silver in the slalom at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, had a lucky escape after he narrowly avoided being hit by a falling drone. Hirscher was on his second run in a World Cup slalom race at Madonna di Campiglio in Italy when a remote-controlled drone with a mounted camera slammed down on the piste inches behind him. "This is horrible," Hirscher said after the event. "This can never happen again. This can be a serious injury." The International Ski Federation (FIS) released a statement on its website apologizing for the "unfortunate accident." But some saw the lighter side announcing that the drone wars had shifted to the ski slopes. "Man, I'd watch a lot more winter sports if this was a standard part of the game," tweeted Marc Andreessen. The company responsible for the drone, sports marketing agency Infront, said its initial investigation "indicates a malfunction of the drone." "The most likely reason is a strong and unforeseen interference on the operating frequency, leading to limited operability," Infront said in a statement. "The pilot followed the official security procedure, purposely flying the drone as close as possible to the ground before releasing it. The aim was to destroy the drone, in order to prevent it from losing control."
Sure. That's common in most sports. Hockey fans who want more fights, skiing fans who like ski cross, American football fans who don't want the game banned, etc.
The possibility of crashes and injuries make otherwise boring or pointless games more exciting.
1) Dog runs from bushes and attacks drone, does damage. Who pays?
Dog owner.
2) Child runs to drone, is hurt. Whose fault?
Child
3) Drone fails in flight, crashes, kills people, destroys property. Amazon pays more than all profits from drone delivery.
Not a question but amazon's fault
4) Teenager is in a field trying a BB gun, shoots at drone. Drone crashes. What then?
Teenager at fault.
5) Someone is testing a Tesla coil in his garage. The huge sparks emit electromagnetic interference, making communication with the drone impossible. Drone cannot be controlled, destroys property. Who pays?
Amazon pays. Failsafe control is part of even the cheapest drones, expect it to be standard.
6) Drone noise and danger reduces the value of houses in a neighborhood. An adjoining county has restrictions against drones; the value of the property there goes up.
No one's at fault. Property values are fungible. I highly doubt the value of land would be lower for a several second drone delivery than a delivery truck driving down the road constantly. You can never buy a house and expect stable property value, and if you do then I have a ... house to sell you. It's in a good location, I promise. *wink*
7) RFI, Radio Frequency Interference: Someone is outside on the street welding something using an electric welder. Electric welding generates interference on ALL frequencies. The drone might receive nothing except noise.
See #5
8) Drone is stolen.
Thief is at fault.
Look drones are not magical. They are not new or unique. None of what you question is even remotely a legal grey area. If you replace the word drone with person, delivery van, or any other word than the mythical "drone" you find so confusing then all cases are very clear cut. But I'm sure you know the risks better than a multi-national megacorproation which armies of R&D teams, rooms full of bored lawyers and lots of money to throw at the problem